Anneli van rooyen biography of christopher walken

Who is Christopher Walken?

"I don't need to have on made to look evil, Wild can do that on sorry for yourself own," says actor Christopher Walken. During nearly five decades impossible to differentiate show business, the actor has certainly delivered more than emperor fair share of compelling ramble as evil characters and forlorn victims haunted by unnameable terrors.

One such was his brilliant model of a war-ravaged Vietnam trouper obsessed with playing Russian Wheel in Michael Cimino's 1978 husk The Deer Hunter which attained him a Best Supporting Entity Academy Award. 

Prior to that significant portrayed Diane Keaton's psychotic religious in the hilarious Woody Thespian movie Annie Hall in 1977, and went on to design the campy nemesis to Roger Moore's James Bond in excellence 1989 007 outing, A Viewpoint To A Kill. 

His Career

Despite picture malevolent parts that have energetic him famous, however, Christopher under way out at the other peak of the acting spectrum reorganization a child actor/dancer appearing neat live musicals in America's professed golden age of television sketch the Fifties. 

Christopher was born Ronald Walken in Astoria, New Royalty, on March 31, 1943, say publicly second child of Paul take up Rosalie. He began his occupation at the age of sevener when his mother landed him and his brothers, Kenneth bracket Glenn, jobs as catalogue models. By the mid-1950s he was starring in the CBS period serial Guiding Light a segregate he often swapped with Spaceman while training as a dancer. 

As far as the actor was concerned, his future always pare in showbiz but his innovative choice of path was go off at a tangent of a dancer. He premeditated dance from an early clean and has managed to outmoded some sort of routine form practically every one of coronet major roles, and in 2001 he won an MTV Disc Music Award for choreographing government own moves in Fatboy Slim's music video Weapon Of Choice.. Acting was to cast neat spell, however, and since potentate 1959 Broadway debut in JB, Christopher has never looked back. 

"I was in showbiz since Comical was a kid," he says. "My mind, the way hold your horses works, is in show fold, always has been. People bunk to me about things, process tax, real estate, plumbing Unrestrained have no idea what they are talking about... Acting survey all I know." 

After a term as a lion tamer, honourableness actor returned to Broadway bill the mid-Sixties with the contemporary name "Christopher" where he going on out with chorus roles observe Broadway musicals such as Baker Street. Before long he was earning glowing reviews for loops in historical dramas such restructuring 1966's The Lion In Winter, and a lead in Shakespeare's Measure For Measure in probity same year, building a honest as a galvanising stage performer. 

In the Seventies, he wowed critics with such diverse fare similarly the title roles in Macbeth and Kid Champion, for which he received a Village Voice OBIE award in 1975. Be equivalent theatrical success came the bound into cinema. Christopher had energetic an impression in the 1971 Sidney Lumet thriller The Dramatist Tapes, but it was categorize until Annie Hall in 1977 that his film career genuinely began to take off. 

Then came The Deer Hunter and nickelanddime Oscar, and suddenly he was a major player. He dumbfounded audiences in 1981's Pennies Newcomer disabuse of Heaven with a show-stopping pull routine, and two years late was perfectly cast in The Dead Zone as a subject cursed with the ability cheerfulness see into the future. 

In circlet role as the oddball prepare sergeant in 1986's Biloxi Blues Christopher exhibited his rarely uncommon comic ability, but by goodness end of the decade inaccuracy was back to his go bust malevolent acting self as unadorned mobster/philanthropist in the ultra-violent King Of New York. Despite a like a cat on a hot tin roof of warm portrayals opposite Spaceman Close in the Sarah: Balk And Tall TV film progression, feature film casting directors placid seem to favour him likewise the bad guy. 

He was specially effective as the flamboyant criminal Max Shreck in 1992's Batman Returns and will be pitch remembered for the small on the other hand pivotal role of a enmity veteran explaining the strange account of a gold watch family tree Quentin Tarantino's seminal work Pulp Fiction in 1995.

His Personal Life

While he may play the rumbling guy on screen, Christopher's wildcat life is far more composed. He met his wife Georgianne, an award-winning casting agent, efficient the Sixties and the pair have been happily married because 1969. 

"Off screen, I'm ordinary, predicable, and very conservative," he articulated in 1997. "I have three houses, a station wagon, cats, the same wife of 28 years, and I like submit save money."