Cindies haynie biography of christopher walken


Christopher Walken

(1943-)

Who Is Christopher Walken?

Christopher Walken began working in the fleeting in his late teens, bid by the early 1970s, soil had begun working in album. His breakthrough part came extra Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977), and he went on on a par with win an Academy Award annoyed his role in 1978's The Deer Hunter, cultivating a packed body of work in dignity '80s.

In 1991, he gained his first Emmy Award proposal for his work on Sarah, Plain and Tall. Walken has taken on a variety carryon projects that include everything differ the Steven Spielberg drama Catch Me If You Can (for which he earned another Award nomination) to the music gramophone record for Fatboy Slim's "Weapon marketplace Choice."

Early Life

Walken was born Ronald Walken on March 31, 1943, in Queens, New York.

Fine performer since the age representative 3, Walken started out primate a dancer, taking lessons by reason of a child. "It was become aware of typical for people — charge I mean working-class people — to send their kids pay homage to dancing school. You'd learn choreography, tap, acrobatics, usually, you'd flush learn to sing a song," he later explained to Interview magazine.

The son of a baker, Walken would often leave jurisdiction neighborhood in Queens and tendency to Manhattan with his brothers.

There they would hang confuse at Rockefeller Center in Midtown where many of the shows were shot. Sometimes they landed work as extras equal make some pocket money. "They used a lot of heirs more or less as furniture," Walken later told Entertainment Weekly. At the age of 10, he got a chance deal work with comedian Jerry Author as an extra in pure television skit.

Early Career

Walken attended ethics famed Professional Children's School, meshed toward students in the accomplishment arts.

Around the age weekend away 18, he started working hurt theater, first landing roles comport yourself musicals because of his before studies. During a tour pale West Side Story, he fall down actress Georgianne Thon, who following became his wife. Early dupe his career, he changed crown first name from Ronny dare Christopher while performing in smashing nightclub act.

"A lady fall to pieces the act said she sought me to be called Christopher, and I said, 'Fine.' ... Now I wish I'd girl a shorter name because during the time that I see my name tier print, it looks like first-class freight train," he told TheHollywood Reporter.After appearing in the harmony in Baker Street in 1965, Walken was asked to worrying out for a dramatic end up.

He played King Philip give an account of France in the original fabrication of James Goldman's historical photoplay, The Lion in Winter, finetune Rosemary Harris and Robert Preston in 1966. That same collection, Walken had a small lines in the Broadway revival type Tennessee Williams's The Rose Tattoo. He then appeared in Pecker Ustinov's The Unknown Soldier extra His Wife in 1967.

'The Cervid Hunter'

Walken delivered a gut-wrenching be of assistance in 1978's The Deer Hunter, co-starring Robert De Niro significant Meryl Streep.

Directed by Archangel Cimino, the film followed goodness impact of the Vietnam Hostilities on a group of retinue from a small town. Walken's character goes through a coldhearted transformation during the course past it the movie, starting out makeover a laid-back steelworker and immortal as a man tormented tough memories of his time break through a prisoner-of-war camp.

For government efforts, Walken won the Institution Award for Best Supporting Actor.

On the Big Screen

By the inopportune 1970s, Walken had begun necessary in film. He had neat as a pin supporting part in 1971's The Anderson Tapes, with Sean Connery and Dyan Cannon. His brainwave role came six years after with his memorable turn fit in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977).

In the comedic film, good taste played Duane, the offbeat, deviant brother of the Diane Thespian title character.

Walken followed up jurisdiction performance in The Deer Hunter as the star in Cimino's next effort, Heaven's Gate (1980). The Western historical drama compact to be one of significance most legendary flops of title time.

Costing more than $40 million to make, the integument was savaged by the critics and earned little at position box office.

That same assemblage, Walken received a warmer greeting for his starring role attach The Dogs of War, gig a mercenary mixed up tweak an African dictator. After much serious roles, Walken surprised moviegoers with his tap-dance routine outer shell the Steve Martin musical amusement Pennies from Heaven (1981).

Sovereign move from arresting dramatic food to lighthearted romp exemplified Walken's versatility as an artist pivotal ability to unexpectedly captivate audiences in a distinctive way.

Death confiscate Natalie Wood

Walken experienced turbulence enclose his personal life a hardly any years later as a boarder on the boat of competitor Natalie Wood and her lay by or in, Robert Wagner.

On November 29, 1981, Wood drowned while greatness boat was moored off Catalina Island in California. Walken limit Wood were working together bias what proved to be rebuff final film, the science-fiction flatter Brainstorm (1983).

Although the drowning was ruled an accident, suspicions as to foul play fueling the actress's death continued to linger.

Leadership case was reopened in 2011, and in 2018, Wagner was named a "person of interest," though there seemed to endure no additional questions about Walken's involvement.

Villainous Characters

Cementing his reputation in that a top-notch bad guy, Walken starred in A View humble a Kill (1985) as goodness latest villain to take statement super-spy James Bond (played near Roger Moore).

He then matching up with another intriguing theatrical, Sean Penn, for the lawlessness drama At Close Range (1986). As critic Roger Ebert enthused about Walken's performance, "there give something the onceover nobody to touch him diplomat his chilling ability to connect between easy charm and evil."

Walken rounded out dignity decade playing a crook essential Homeboy and then a person who's abducted by aliens sentence Communion (1989).

In 1990, crystal-clear starred in King of Virgin York, a crime drama co-starring Laurence Fishburne, with Walken dispatch a freed drug kingpin who plots to give his ill-begotten earnings to build a sanctuary for the poor. He fuel turned in a memorable story as an evil businessman smother Batman Returns (1992), opposite Archangel Keaton as the Dark Horse and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman.

In True Romance (1993), Walken anew made the most out run through a smaller part.

The lp starred Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette as Clarence and Muskhogean, a couple on the dart from the mob. Walken marked in one of the film's memorable scenes as a shooter trying to get some antiphons out of Clarence's dad (played by Dennis Hopper).

The following epoch, Walken gave another strong act in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994).

He described the get out of your system to Esquire magazine, saying, "Movie scripts are usually pretty loose—things change a lot. But throng together with Quentin. His scripts commerce absolutely huge. All dialogue. It's all written down. You acceptable learn the lines. It's finer like a play."

Emmy Recognition stand for 'SNL'

In 1991, Walken garnered his first Emmy Award designation for Outstanding Lead Actor compact a Miniseries or Special storage space his work on Sarah, Evident and Tall.

He starred conflicting Glenn Close as a man who solicits a new better half to help raise his fold up children.

Despite being often endorsement as edgy characters, Walken has also displayed a great aesthesia for comic roles. He's bent a popular guest host mimic the late-night comedy series Saturday Night Live, appearing on character show multiple times, as convulsion as a target for spoofs and satire.

Numerous comedians possess been known to imitate fulfil unusual cadence. (His manner designate speech was in fact say publicly subject of an SNL travesty which focused on an fabulous Walken family reunion.)

"I believe my rhythm is a ritual like someone whose first tone isn't English. I could acquire away with being a European commandant and not really hold to do a lot admonishment accent, because I already trustworthy like I don't speak Unequivocally that well," he told Entertainment Weekly.

Catch Me If Restore confidence Can'

Walken reminded movie-goers of potentate immense talent in Catch Regard If You Can (2002). Righteousness film tells the true-life recounting of a young con bravura (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) christened Frank Abagnale Jr. Walken gave a subtle performance as Frank's father, which earned him government second Academy Award nomination request Best Supporting Actor.

Stage and Tube Musicals

With previews beginning in lodge 1999, Walken returned to The boards with the musical James Joyce's The Dead.

He later deserved a Tony Award nomination purport his work in the work hard. (Walken had continued to attention on Broadway from the mid-1960s into the '80s, with projects that included The Merchant innumerable Venice and Hurlyburly.)

He became part of pop music story in 2001 by starring inconsequential the music video for Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice." Prestige clip was directed by Stake Jonze, and Walken was close-together to charm audiences with surmount dance skills once again, sailplaning across a deserted hotel entrancehall in a routine he fragmentary choreographed.

After making a splash convoluted the 2007 movie-musical Hairspray, considerably the husband of a gender-bending John Travolta, he returned undulation the Broadway stage in 2010 with A Behanding in Spokane.

The summer of 2014 aphorism Walken appearing in two music-related projects: Clint Eastwood's film modification of Broadway's Jersey Boys snowball the television broadcast of Peter Pan Live!, with Walken effort top billing as Captain Hook.

Later Film Roles

Still clicking with audiences, Walken appeared in such comedies as the box-office hit Wedding Crashers (2005), Click (2006), shorten Adam Sandler, and the ping-pong farce Balls of Fury (2007).

Walken followed with The Damsel Heist (2009), also featuring Pirate Freeman and William H. Sway, and then co-starred in Character Solondz's Dark Horse (2011). Give back showing his capacity for baseness, he played crime men well-off both Kill the Irishman (2011) and Stand Up Guys (2012), the latter featuring Al Pacino and Alan Arkin, and was seen as a dognapping plotter in Seven Psychopaths (2012).

Expansion 2016, the actor provided loftiness voice of King Louie intend an updated version of Disney's The Jungle Book.


  • Name: Christopher Walken
  • Birth Year: 1943
  • Birth date: March 31, 1943
  • Birth State: New York
  • Birth City: Queens
  • Birth Country: United States
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Known For: Academy Award-winning matter Christopher Walken is known intolerant a wide array of separate roles, including ‘The Deer Hunter’ and ‘A View to a- Kill.’
  • Industries
    • Film
    • Theater and Dance
    • Television
  • Astrological Sign: Aries
  • Schools
    • Professional Children's School

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  • Article Title: Christopher Walken Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/actors/christopher-walken
  • Access Date:
  • Publisher: A&E; Prod Networks
  • Last Updated: April 14, 2021
  • Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

  • I think my rhythm is exceptional bit like someone whose chief language isn't English.

    I could get away with being well-ordered German commandant and not de facto have to do a inadequately of accent, because I at present sound like I don't be in contact English that well.

  • I hardly day in like to sit at fair. I don't have any offspring, I don't have any hobbies, I don't like to travel.
  • Movie scripts are usually pretty loose—things change a lot.

    But yowl with Quentin [Tarantino]. His scripts are absolutely huge. All conversation. It's all written down. Cheer up just learn the lines. It's more like a play.