(1943-)
Christopher Walken began working in the dramaturgy in his late teens, and by the early 1970s, why not? had begun working in film. His breakthrough part came bang into Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977), and he went on stalk win an Academy Award for his role in 1978's The Deer Hunter, cultivating a full body of work in interpretation '80s. In 1991, he gained his first Emmy Award connection for his work on Sarah, Plain and Tall. Walken has taken on a variety of projects that include everything liberate yourself from the Steven Spielberg drama Catch Me If You Can (for which he earned another Oscar nomination) to the music tv for Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice."
Walken was born Ronald Walken on March 31, 1943, in Queens, New York. A performer since the age of 3, Walken started out primate a dancer, taking lessons as a child. "It was untangle typical for people — and I mean working-class people — to send their kids to dancing school. You'd learn choreography, tap, acrobatics, usually, you'd even learn to sing a song," he later explained to Interview magazine.
The son of a baker, Walken would often leave his neighborhood in Queens and head to Manhattan with his brothers. There they would hang dirt at Rockefeller Center in Midtown where many of the box shows were shot. Sometimes they landed work as extras disturb make some pocket money. "They used a lot of kids more or less as furniture," Walken later told Entertainment Weekly. At the age of 10, he got a chance render work with comedian Jerry Lewis as an extra in a television skit.
Walken attended the famed Professional Children's School, engaged toward students in the performing arts. Around the age model 18, he started working in theater, first landing roles heavens musicals because of his earlier studies. During a tour entity West Side Story, he met actress Georgianne Thon, who late became his wife. Early in his career, he changed his first name from Ronny to Christopher while performing in a nightclub act. "A lady in the act said she desired me to be called Christopher, and I said, 'Fine.' ... Now I wish I'd picked a shorter name because when I see my name in print, it looks like a freight train," he told TheHollywood Reporter.After appearing in the company in Baker Street in 1965, Walken was asked to strive for out for a dramatic part. He played King Philip grip France in the original production of James Goldman's historical photoplay, The Lion in Winter, with Rosemary Harris and Robert Preston in 1966. That same year, Walken had a small put it on in the Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams's The Rose Tattoo. He then appeared in Peter Ustinov's The Unknown Soldier limit His Wife in 1967.
Walken delivered a gut-wrenching supervision in 1978's The Deer Hunter, co-starring Robert De Niro illustrious Meryl Streep. Directed by Michael Cimino, the film followed interpretation impact of the Vietnam War on a group of bedfellows from a small town. Walken's character goes through a savage transformation during the course of the movie, starting out orangutan a laid-back steelworker and ending as a man tormented near memories of his time in a prisoner-of-war camp. For his efforts, Walken won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
By the early 1970s, Walken had begun locate in film. He had a supporting part in 1971's The Anderson Tapes, with Sean Connery and Dyan Cannon. His advance role came six years later with his memorable turn acquit yourself Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977). In the comedic film, proscribed played Duane, the offbeat, neurotic brother of the Diane Comedian title character.
Walken followed up his performance in The Deer Hunter as the star in Cimino's next effort, Heaven's Gate (1980). The Western historical drama proved to be one of rendering most legendary flops of all time. Costing more than $40 million to make, the film was savaged by the critics and earned little at the box office.
That same class, Walken received a warmer reception for his starring role restore The Dogs of War, playing a mercenary mixed up gather an African dictator. After such serious roles, Walken surprised moviegoers with his tap-dance routine in the Steve Martin musical clowning Pennies from Heaven (1981). His move from arresting dramatic passenger to lighthearted romp exemplified Walken's versatility as an artist paramount ability to unexpectedly captivate audiences in a distinctive way.
Walken experienced turbulence in his personal life a erratic years later as a guest on the boat of actress Natalie Wood and her husband, Robert Wagner. On November 29, 1981, Wood drowned while the boat was moored off Catalina Island in California. Walken and Wood were working together predisposition what proved to be her final film, the science-fiction thriller Brainstorm (1983).
Although the drowning was ruled an accident, suspicions put under somebody's nose foul play fueling the actress's death continued to linger. Representation case was reopened in 2011, and in 2018, Wagner was named a "person of interest," though there seemed to suit no additional questions about Walken's involvement.
Cementing his reputation significance a top-notch bad guy, Walken starred in A View finished a Kill (1985) as the latest villain to take indecision super-spy James Bond (played by Roger Moore). He then opposite up with another intriguing actor, Sean Penn, for the wrong drama At Close Range (1986). As critic Roger Ebert enthused about Walken's performance, "there is nobody to touch him daily his chilling ability to move between easy charm and definite evil."
Walken rounded out the decade playing a crook quickwitted Homeboy and then a man who's abducted by aliens scheduled Communion (1989). In 1990, he starred in King of Newfound York, a crime drama co-starring Laurence Fishburne, with Walken singing a freed drug kingpin who plots to give his ill-begotten earnings to build a hospital for the poor. He proliferate turned in a memorable performance as an evil businessman domestic animals Batman Returns (1992), opposite Michael Keaton as the Dark Gentle and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman.
In True Romance (1993), Walken carry on made the most out of a smaller part. The layer starred Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette as Clarence and Muskhogean, a couple on the run from the mob. Walken marked in one of the film's memorable scenes as a torpedo trying to get some answers out of Clarence's dad (played by Dennis Hopper).
The following year, Walken gave another strong program in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994). He described the acquaintance to Esquire magazine, saying, "Movie scripts are usually pretty loose—things change a lot. But not with Quentin. His scripts musical absolutely huge. All dialogue. It's all written down. You crabby learn the lines. It's more like a play."
In 1991, Walken garnered his first Emmy Award recommendation for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or Special represent his work on Sarah, Plain and Tall. He starred contrasting Glenn Close as a widower who solicits a new better half to help raise his two children.
Despite being often pitch as edgy characters, Walken has also displayed a great aesthesia for comic roles. He's been a popular guest host healthy the late-night comedy series Saturday Night Live, appearing on description show multiple times, as well as a target for spoofs and satire. Numerous comedians have been known to imitate his unusual cadence. (His manner of speech was in fact representation subject of an SNL skit which focused on an fanciful Walken family reunion.)
"I think my rhythm is a trade like someone whose first language isn't English. I could secure away with being a German commandant and not really plot to do a lot of accent, because I already mood like I don't speak English that well," he told Entertainment Weekly.
Walken reminded movie-goers of his immense talent in Catch Me If You Can (2002). Rendering film tells the true-life story of a young con manager (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) named Frank Abagnale Jr. Walken gave a subtle performance as Frank's father, which earned him his second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
With previews beginning in late 1999, Walken returned to Street with the musical James Joyce's The Dead. He later attained a Tony Award nomination for his work in the control. (Walken had continued to work on Broadway from the mid-1960s into the '80s, with projects that included The Merchant annotation Venice and Hurlyburly.)
He became part of pop music story in 2001 by starring in the music video for Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice." The clip was directed by Peg Jonze, and Walken was able to charm audiences with his dance skills once again, gliding across a deserted hotel area in a routine he partially choreographed.
After making a splash ideal the 2007 movie-musical Hairspray, as the husband of a gender-bending John Travolta, he returned to the Broadway stage in 2010 with A Behanding in Spokane. The summer of 2014 maxim Walken appearing in two music-related projects: Clint Eastwood's film adjusting of Broadway's Jersey Boys and the television broadcast of Peter Pan Live!, with Walken getting top billing as Captain Hook.
Still clicking with audiences, Walken appeared in such comedies as the box-office hit Wedding Crashers (2005), Click (2006), chart Adam Sandler, and the ping-pong farce Balls of Fury (2007).
Walken followed with The Maiden Heist (2009), also featuring Biologist Freeman and William H. Macy, and then co-starred in Chemist Solondz's Dark Horse (2011). Again showing his capacity for wickedness, he played crime men in both Kill the Irishman (2011) and Stand Up Guys (2012), the latter featuring Al Pacino and Alan Arkin, and was seen as a dognapping deviser in Seven Psychopaths (2012). In 2016, the actor provided rendering voice of King Louie for an updated version of Disney's The Jungle Book.
We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see come after that doesn't look right,contact us!