MY LIFE IN 10 PICTURES
Take a look back at Christopher Walken’s storied acting career.
“Things have worked out better than I expected... because I didn’t expect things to be good.”
— Christopher
RAISED IN Queens, N.Y., with his two brothers, Ronald Walken started performing at age 5 with encouragement from his mother. He learned his father’s work ethic at the family bakery: “He loved his job and felt it was his responsibility to always be on top of it.” And Ronnie — whose stage partner decided to call him Christopher, and he went with it — worked his way to the top of Hollywood with idiosyncratic roles and a unique voice people love to emulate.
“When people [imitate me], I think, ‘Why are you talking like that?’ I don’t think I sound like that.” But Christopher, who turns 75 on March 31, does sound like a man who’ll never retire. “I really love doing it.… And I’d never had hobbies. I don’t play tennis.
I can’t swim. I don’t leave the house much. I like to work.” 1950s CHILD’S PLAY “We weren’t child actors — we were used as furniture,” says Chris, who started performing for family members. “You learned to think on your feet. If you messed up, there was no correcting it…. You dealt with the embarrassment. It was a completely unique apprenticeship.” 1978 NEAR AND DEER Playing “very troubled people” in pics like The Deer Hunter (which won him an Oscar) established him as “the guy who has something wrong with him. I guess I was good, so I got more [roles like it].”
1985 BONDING EXPERIENCE “I was a Bond villain. That’s special. You’re certainly on some sort of list,” he muses of A View to a Kill, where he became real-life pals with Roger Moore. “A wonderful man — he invited me to his home in Switzerland. It was James Bond and the villain hanging out over Christmas.”
1991 PLAIN TRUTH Playing a widower who weds a mail-order bride (Glenn Close) in the Sarah, Plain and Tall telepics felt “much more like what my own life is like” than other roles. “I’ve been married for years. I’m a very good citizen, conscientious about my bills. I play all these eccentricities, but my life doesn’t reflect that at all.”
1994 TIMEPIECE His scene as the heirloom-toting Air Force captain in Pulp Fiction lasts just four minutes, but it’s become one of Christopher’s most recognizable parts. “I was in a steam room in the Czech Republic. This guy starts talking about ‘this watch.’ I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’”
2001 STEP UP “I danced from the time I was a little kid when I was a chorus boy until I was 30something.” But when he hoofed it up in Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” video, he surprised even himself. “I was nearly 60. I suppose if I’d been a more cautious person, I wouldn’t have. But I’m not.”
2002 A GOOD CATCH He was thrilled to play dad to Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can. “I finally got to play a human being who doesn’t want to take over the world with radon.”
2003 LIVE WIRE Hosting Saturday Night Live (he’s done it seven times) is always “intense,” he shares. “I said to somebody, ‘How do you do this every week?’ He said, ‘Well, everybody is afraid to be the one to mess it up.’ It’s a self-preservation thing.”
2014 ON THE HOOK “I was scared,” admits Chris of his turn in Peter Pan Live! “You know, doing it this way, getting ready and then having one moment — it’s really more like sports than theater. It’s like a football game or something. You get ready, and then you go play.”
2018 LOVE STORY “It was pretty much love at first sight,” says Chris, who met wife Georgianne at 19 in a touring company of West Side Story. “Five years later, we got married. It’s funny, because in movies I never get the girl. But I got the girl in life.”