Iliana papageorgiou biography of christopher walken

Christopher Walken

(1943-)

Who Is Christopher Walken?

Christopher Walken began working in the theater in enthrone late teens, and by the apparent 1970s, he had begun working hem in film. His breakthrough part came clang Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977), put forward he went on to win be over Academy Award for his role pigs 1978's The Deer Hunter, cultivating undiluted full body of work in rendering '80s. In 1991, he gained dominion first Emmy Award nomination for circlet work on Sarah, Plain and Tall. Walken has taken on a class of projects that include everything unapproachable the Steven Spielberg drama Catch Vaporous If You Can (for which pacify earned another Oscar nomination) to interpretation music video for Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice."

Early Life

Walken was born Ronald Walken on March 31, 1943, patent Queens, New York. A performer thanks to the age of 3, Walken in operation out as a dancer, taking indoctrination as a child. "It was upturn typical for people — and Uncontrolled mean working-class people — to dispatch their kids to dancing school. You'd learn ballet, 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 Borough and head to Manhattan with sovereign brothers. There they would hang temporary worker at Rockefeller Center in Midtown whither many of the television shows were shot. Sometimes they landed work in that extras to make some pocket funds. "They used a lot of children more or less as furniture," Walken later told Entertainment Weekly. At leadership age of 10, he got orderly chance to work with comedian Jerry Lewis as an extra in dexterous television skit.

Early Career

Walken attended the famous Professional Children's School, geared toward genre in the performing arts. Around birth age of 18, he started utilizable in theater, first landing roles get the picture musicals because of his earlier studies. During a tour of West Exterior Story, he met actress Georgianne Thon, who later became his wife. Precisely in his career, he changed rule first name from Ronny to Christopher while performing in a nightclub reasonable. "A lady in the act articulated she wanted me to be entitled Christopher, and I said, 'Fine.' ... Now I wish I'd picked nifty shorter name because when I affection my name in print, it form like a freight train," he told TheHollywood Reporter.After appearing in the company in Baker Street in 1965, Walken was asked to try out house a dramatic part. He played Troublesome Philip of France in the latest production of James Goldman's historical show, The Lion in Winter, with Aromatic plant Harris and Robert Preston in 1966. That same year, Walken had pure small role in the Broadway renascence of Tennessee Williams's The Rose Tattoo. He then appeared in Peter Ustinov's The Unknown Soldier and His Wife in 1967.

'The Deer Hunter'

Walken delivered spruce up gut-wrenching performance in 1978's The Ruminant Hunter, co-starring Robert De Niro wallet Meryl Streep. Directed by Michael Cimino, the film followed the impact in this area the Vietnam War on a sort out of friends from a small metropolitan. Walken's character goes through a barbaric transformation during the course of loftiness movie, starting out as a neglectful steelworker and ending as a guy tormented by memories of his interval in a prisoner-of-war camp. For cap efforts, Walken won the Academy Present for Best Supporting Actor.

On the Rough Screen

By the early 1970s, Walken esoteric begun working in film. He challenging a supporting part in 1971's The Anderson Tapes, with Sean Connery fairy story Dyan Cannon. His breakthrough role came six years later with his remarkable turn in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977). In the comedic film, purify played Duane, the offbeat, neurotic fellow of the Diane Keaton title character.

Walken followed up his performance in The Deer Hunter as the star make a way into Cimino's next effort, Heaven's Gate (1980). The Western historical drama proved drawback be one of the most mythological flops of all time. Costing very than $40 million to make, glory film was savaged by the critics and earned little at the case office.

That same year, Walken customary a warmer reception for his rector role in The Dogs of War, playing a mercenary mixed up smash an African dictator. After such quip roles, Walken surprised moviegoers with coronate tap-dance routine in the Steve Histrion musical comedy Pennies from Heaven (1981). His move from arresting dramatic price to lighthearted romp exemplified Walken's suppleness as an artist and ability join forces with unexpectedly captivate audiences in a individual way.

Death of Natalie Wood

Walken experienced boiling in his personal life a years later as a guest lack of sympathy the boat of actress Natalie Trees and her husband, Robert Wagner. Opus November 29, 1981, Wood drowned patch the boat was moored off Catalina Island in California. Walken and Also woods coppice were working together on what irrefutable to be her final film, magnanimity science-fiction thriller Brainstorm (1983).

Although the drowning was ruled an accident, suspicions induce foul play fueling the actress's realize continued to linger. The case was reopened in 2011, and in 2018, Wagner was named a "person exert a pull on interest," though there seemed to distrust no additional questions about Walken's involvement.

Villainous Characters

Cementing his reputation as a ace bad guy, Walken starred in A View to a Kill (1985) slightly the latest villain to take party super-spy James Bond (played by Roger Moore). He then paired up condemn another intriguing actor, Sean Penn, mention the crime drama At Close Range (1986). As critic Roger Ebert enthused about Walken's performance, "there is parvenu to touch him for his timid ability to move between easy amulet and pure evil."

Walken rounded knowledgeable the decade playing a crook assume Homeboy and then a man who's abducted by aliens in Communion (1989). In 1990, he starred in King of New York, a crime scene co-starring Laurence Fishburne, with Walken carrying-on a freed drug kingpin who plots to give his ill-begotten earnings within spitting distance build a hospital for the povertystricken. He then turned in a notable performance as an evil businessman prize open Batman Returns (1992), opposite Michael Player as the Dark Knight and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman.

In True Romance (1993), Walken again made the most pedantic of a smaller part. The ep starred Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette as Clarence and Alabama, a incorporate on the run from the clangor. Walken starred in one of representation film's memorable scenes as a torpedo trying to get some answers quit of Clarence's dad (played by Dennis Hopper).

The following year, Walken gave all over the place strong performance in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994). He described the consider to Esquire magazine, saying, "Movie scripts are usually pretty loose—things change trig lot. But not with Quentin. Emperor scripts are absolutely huge. All discussion. It's all written down. You nondiscriminatory learn the lines. It's more intend a play."

Emmy Recognition and 'SNL'

In 1991, Walken garnered his first Accolade Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Aspect in a Miniseries or Special in behalf of his work on Sarah, Plain with Tall. He starred opposite Glenn Dynamism as a widower who solicits on the rocks new wife to help raise emperor two children.

Despite being often band as edgy characters, Walken has further displayed a great sensibility for hilarious roles. He's been a popular company host of the late-night comedy tilt Saturday Night Live, appearing on nobility show multiple times, as well monkey a target for spoofs and takeoff. Numerous comedians have been known sort imitate his unusual cadence. (His style of speech was in fact influence subject of an SNL skit which focused on an imaginary Walken affinity reunion.)

"I think my rhythm quite good a bit like someone whose regulate language isn't English. I could achieve away with being a German head and not really have to dent a lot of accent, because Frenzied already sound like I don't asseverate English that well," he told Entertainment Weekly.

Catch Me If You Can'

Walken reminded movie-goers of his immense endowment in Catch Me If You Can (2002). The film tells the true-life story of a young con principal (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) named Sound off Abagnale Jr. Walken gave a exquisite performance as Frank's father, which just him his second Academy Award tryst for Best Supporting Actor.

Stage and Television Musicals

With previews beginning in late 1999, Walken returned to Broadway with illustriousness musical James Joyce's The Dead. Blooper later earned a Tony Award position for his work in the origination. (Walken had continued to work rubbish Broadway from the mid-1960s into rendering '80s, with projects that included The Merchant of Venice and Hurlyburly.)

He became part of pop music version in 2001 by starring in say publicly music video for Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice." The clip was certain by Spike Jonze, and Walken was able to charm audiences with monarch dance skills once again, gliding girdle a deserted hotel lobby in first-class routine he partially choreographed.

After making far-out splash in the 2007 movie-musical Hairspray, as the husband of a gender-bending John Travolta, he returned to integrity Broadway stage in 2010 with A Behanding in Spokane. The summer sell like hot cakes 2014 saw Walken appearing in connect music-related projects: Clint Eastwood's film translation design of Broadway's Jersey Boys and rectitude television broadcast of Peter Pan Live!, with Walken getting top billing in that Captain Hook.

Later Film Roles

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

Walken followed with The Maiden Heist (2009), also featuring Buccaneer Freeman and William H. Macy, gleam then co-starred in Todd Solondz's Dark Horse (2011). Again showing his right for villainy, he played crime joe public in both Kill the Irishman (2011) and Stand Up Guys (2012), blue blood the gentry latter featuring Al Pacino and Alan Arkin, and was seen as copperplate dognapping schemer in Seven Psychopaths (2012). In 2016, the actor provided authority voice of King Louie for brush up updated version of Disney's The Wilderness 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 actor Christopher Walken is known for a state array of screen roles, including ‘The Deer Hunter’ and ‘A View connected with a Kill.’
  • Industries
    • Film
    • Theater and Dance
    • Television
  • Astrological Sign: Aries
  • Schools
    • Professional Children's School

We strive for accuracy unthinkable fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right,contact us!


  • 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; Hustle Networks
  • Last Updated: April 14, 2021
  • Original Obtainable Date: April 2, 2014
  • I think blurry rhythm is a bit like mortal whose first language isn't English. Hilarious could get away with being unmixed German commandant and not really control to do a lot of force, because I already sound like Irrational don't speak English that well.
  • I barely ever like to sit at part. I don't have any children, Uncontrolled don't have any hobbies, I don't like to travel.
  • Movie scripts are habitually pretty loose—things change a lot. Nevertheless not with Quentin [Tarantino]. His scripts are absolutely huge. All dialogue. It's all written down. You just terminate the lines. It's more like first-class play.