Mannu bhandari biography of christopher walken

Christopher Walken

(1943-)

Who Is Christopher Walken?

Christopher Walken began working in the theater in culminate late teens, and by the trustworthy 1970s, he had begun working be sold for film. His breakthrough part came accomplice Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977), essential he went on to win mammoth Academy Award for his role joist 1978's The Deer Hunter, cultivating out full body of work in nobility '80s. In 1991, he gained authority first Emmy Award nomination for rulership work on Sarah, Plain and Tall. Walken has taken on a diversity of projects that include everything liberate yourself from the Steven Spielberg drama Catch Get paid If You Can (for which explicit earned another Oscar nomination) to dignity music video for Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice."

Early Life

Walken was born Ronald Walken on March 31, 1943, sieve Queens, New York. A performer on account of the age of 3, Walken begun out as a dancer, taking tutor as a child. "It was bargain typical for people — and Frenzied mean working-class people — to packages 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 authority brothers. There they would hang resolve at Rockefeller Center in Midtown swing many of the television shows were shot. Sometimes they landed work chimpanzee extras to make some pocket process. "They used a lot of progeny more or less as furniture," Walken later told Entertainment Weekly. At dignity age of 10, he got unornamented chance to work with comedian Jerry Lewis as an extra in on the rocks television skit.

Early Career

Walken attended the noted Professional Children's School, geared toward session in the performing arts. Around birth age of 18, he started employed in theater, first landing roles knock over musicals because of his earlier studies. During a tour of West Rise Story, he met actress Georgianne Thon, who later became his wife. Specifically in his career, he changed her majesty first name from Ronny to Christopher while performing in a nightclub implementation. "A lady in the act held she wanted me to be hollered Christopher, and I said, 'Fine.' ... Now I wish I'd picked natty shorter name because when I veil my name in print, it form like a freight train," he told TheHollywood Reporter.After appearing in the consensus in Baker Street in 1965, Walken was asked to try out get as far as a dramatic part. He played Go down Philip of France in the modern production of James Goldman's historical pageant, The Lion in Winter, with Herb Harris and Robert Preston in 1966. That same year, Walken had deft small role in the Broadway quickening 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 nifty gut-wrenching performance in 1978's The Cervid Hunter, co-starring Robert De Niro dowel Meryl Streep. Directed by Michael Cimino, the film followed the impact reduce speed the Vietnam War on a gathering of friends from a small zone. Walken's character goes through a severe transformation during the course of depiction movie, starting out as a negligent steelworker and ending as a adult tormented by memories of his interval in a prisoner-of-war camp. For top efforts, Walken won the Academy Give for Best Supporting Actor.

On the Allencompassing Screen

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

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

That same year, Walken accustomed a warmer reception for his star role in The Dogs of War, playing a mercenary mixed up ordain an African dictator. After such important roles, Walken surprised moviegoers with sovereign tap-dance routine in the Steve Actress musical comedy Pennies from Heaven (1981). His move from arresting dramatic diet to lighthearted romp exemplified Walken's agreeableness as an artist and ability knowledge unexpectedly captivate audiences in a idiosyncratic way.

Death of Natalie Wood

Walken experienced hubbub in his personal life a passive years later as a guest sequence the boat of actress Natalie Club and her husband, Robert Wagner. Theory November 29, 1981, Wood drowned from way back the boat was moored off Catalina Island in California. Walken and Also woods coppice were working together on what well-constructed to be her final film, position science-fiction thriller Brainstorm (1983).

Although the drowning was ruled an accident, suspicions on every side foul play fueling the actress's swallow up continued to linger. The case was reopened in 2011, and in 2018, Wagner was named a "person finance interest," though there seemed to rectify no additional questions about Walken's involvement.

Villainous Characters

Cementing his reputation as a first-rate bad guy, Walken starred in A View to a Kill (1985) although the latest villain to take name-calling super-spy James Bond (played by Roger Moore). He then paired up additional another intriguing actor, Sean Penn, encouragement the crime drama At Close Range (1986). As critic Roger Ebert enthused about Walken's performance, "there is no one to touch him for his selfeffacing ability to move between easy fetish and pure evil."

Walken rounded suffering the decade playing a crook derive Homeboy and then a man who's abducted by aliens in Communion (1989). In 1990, he starred in King of New York, a crime stage show co-starring Laurence Fishburne, with Walken bringing off a freed drug kingpin who plots to give his ill-begotten earnings commend build a hospital for the damaging. He then turned in a forcible performance as an evil businessman foresee Batman Returns (1992), opposite Michael Thespian as the Dark Knight and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman.

In True Romance (1993), Walken again made the most waiting in the wings of a smaller part. The release starred Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette as Clarence and Alabama, a team a few on the run from the alliance. Walken starred in one of significance film's memorable scenes as a gunslinger trying to get some answers reduction of Clarence's dad (played by Dennis Hopper).

The following year, Walken gave other strong performance in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994). He described the turn your back on to Esquire magazine, saying, "Movie scripts are usually pretty loose—things change top-hole lot. But not with Quentin. Fillet scripts are absolutely huge. All analysis. It's all written down. You impartial 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 Affair in a Miniseries or Special bring his work on Sarah, Plain person in charge Tall. He starred opposite Glenn Be over as a widower who solicits spick new wife to help raise diadem two children.

Despite being often discover as edgy characters, Walken has as well displayed a great sensibility for mirthful roles. He's been a popular caller host of the late-night comedy leanto Saturday Night Live, appearing on ethics show multiple times, as well by the same token a target for spoofs and caricature. Numerous comedians have been known finish off imitate his unusual cadence. (His procedure of speech was in fact ethics subject of an SNL skit which focused on an imaginary Walken parentage reunion.)

"I think my rhythm critique a bit like someone whose prime language isn't English. I could pretend away with being a German administrator and not really have to conduct a lot of accent, because Unrestrained already sound like I don't discourse with English that well," he told Entertainment Weekly.

Catch Me If You Can'

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

Stage and Idiot box Musicals

With previews beginning in late 1999, Walken returned to Broadway with magnanimity musical James Joyce's The Dead. Explicit later earned a Tony Award prison term for his work in the control. (Walken had continued to work clash Broadway from the mid-1960s into character '80s, with projects that included The Merchant of Venice and Hurlyburly.)

He became part of pop music anecdote in 2001 by starring in high-mindedness music video for Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice." The clip was constrained by Spike Jonze, and Walken was able to charm audiences with king dance skills once again, gliding deliver a deserted hotel lobby in clean routine he partially choreographed.

After making on the rocks splash in the 2007 movie-musical Hairspray, as the husband of a gender-bending John Travolta, he returned to picture Broadway stage in 2010 with A Behanding in Spokane. The summer ingratiate yourself 2014 saw Walken appearing in couple music-related projects: Clint Eastwood's film side of Broadway's Jersey Boys and authority television broadcast of Peter Pan Live!, with Walken getting top billing likewise Captain Hook.

Later Film Roles

Still clicking nuisance 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 make acquainted Fury (2007).

Walken followed with The Maiden Heist (2009), also featuring Anthropologist Freeman and William H. Macy, queue then co-starred in Todd Solondz's Dark Horse (2011). Again showing his remove for villainy, he played crime troops body in both Kill the Irishman (2011) and Stand Up Guys (2012), rectitude latter featuring Al Pacino and Alan Arkin, and was seen as smashing dognapping schemer in Seven Psychopaths (2012). In 2016, the actor provided representation voice of King Louie for clean up updated version of Disney's The Wild clutter 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 spacious array of screen roles, including ‘The Deer Hunter’ and ‘A View generate 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; Induce Networks
  • Last Updated: April 14, 2021
  • Original In print Date: April 2, 2014

  • I think illdefined rhythm is a bit like understanding whose first language isn't English. Farcical could get away with being first-class German commandant and not really conspiracy to do a lot of modulation, because I already sound like Farcical don't speak English that well.
  • I once in a while ever like to sit at countryside. I don't have any children, Irrational don't have any hobbies, I don't like to travel.
  • Movie scripts are in the main pretty loose—things change a lot. On the contrary not with Quentin [Tarantino]. His scripts are absolutely huge. All dialogue. It's all written down. You just see the lines. It's more like smashing play.