Winner of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in The Deer Hunter (1978), and also winner of 14 other awards and 11 nominations, at 65, Christopher Walken still believes in keeping himself as busy as he can and will not retire in the near future.
Ronald Walken was born to Rosalie and Paul Walken on March 31, 1943. He started performing on television shows when he was barely eight years old. Although his parents were bakers by profession, Rosalie Walken was a part of The Stage Mother’s Society and often took all three of her sons (Ron, Ken and Glenn) for auditions as she was keen that they be part of the acting industry.
During his early roles as a child actor, he performed mainly as an extra in a number of anthology series and variety shows. In 1953, when he was still known as Ronnie, Walken got himself a job as a narrator for a television show The Wonderful John Actor . Archibald’s J.B. saw him make his off-Broadway debut at 15. Ronnie was also involved with a circus as the lion tamer’s son. For 20 years after this, he did only television shows and excelled in theatre.
Ronnie became Christopher in 1964, when a friend suggested to him that the name Christopher suited him better. Christopher’s first feature film was in 1971 when he played a small role opposite the Sean Connery in Sidney Lumet’s The Anderson Tapes . The following year, he played the lead role of a sociopath American soldier posted in Germany in The Mind Snatchers, a science fiction film that deals with mind control and normalization.
Four years down the line, Christopher won his Academy Award for The Deer Hunter. He has won several awards as a supporting actor, a comedian and a villain. Having appeared in more than hundred movies, including The Sentinel (1975), Shoot the Sun Down (1978), The Dogs of War (1981), A View to Kill (1985), Batman Returns (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994), The Prophecy (1995) Julius Caesar (2002), Wedding Crashers (2005) and Hairspray (2007) as well as several television series, he continues to work on at least five films a year. His trademark is including a dance piece in all his movies, as well as having monologues that have a dark humour to them.
Christopher prefers to be addressed as Chris – in his own words, “Christopher sounds like a sneeze”. Chris married casting director, Georgianne Thon, in 1969 and they have been married ever since. They decided not to have any children, so that they could comfortably concentrate on their respective careers. Blue in one eye and hazel in another, Chris has been quoted as saying, “At its best, life is completely unpredictable.”
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