Christopher Walken’s Key to Success? Not Having Any Kids
Christopher Walken’s filmography abounds with eye-catching performances in excellent movies. The actor began performing as a small child, setting him on a unique path to stardom. Walken has been working consistently for decades, a feat the actor credits to his and his wife’s decision not to have kids.
Christopher Walken began his acting career as a child
Christopher Walken was born Ronald Walken in Queens, New York, on Mar. 31, 1943. His parents, Rosalie and Paul, wasted no time introducing their son to the performing arts. According to Biography, Walken began taking dance lessons when he was only 3.
He and his brothers, Kenneth and Glenn, eventually found work as extras on TV shows after making Rockefeller Center a frequent hangout. Walken’s most significant adolescent role was in a sketch with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis on the variety show The Colgate Comedy Hour.
The actor’s eccentricities became more apparent during his teenage years. Walken chose his signature hairstyle at 15 after his girlfriend showed him a picture of Elvis Presley in a magazine. Around the same time, Walken joined a traveling circus owned by Terrell Jacobs, where one of his duties was working as a lion tamer.
Christopher Walken admits he wouldn’t have been able to work as much if he’d had kids
Walken attended Hofstra University for a year before dropping out to work in theater. An early role as Riff in a 1963 touring production of West Side Story proved to be one of the most important experiences in his life. It’s where he met Georgianne Thon — a fellow actor and eventual casting director he would marry in 1969. They’re still together.
Life as a child actor can sometimes make a person wary of the entertainment industry in a way that makes them give up on the profession. Yet Walken has seemingly never lost his passion for acting. He has appeared in 140 movies and TV shows, as well as hundreds of theater productions. Despite turning 80 at the end of the month, he remains one of the hardest-working performers in Hollywood.
How has he accomplished so much? He credits two things: his and Georgianne’s child-free life and his commitment to a sort of monastic living.
“Well, my life is really quite conservative. I’ve been married nearly 50 years. I don’t have hobbies or children. I don’t much care to travel. I’ve never had a big social life. I really just stay home except when I go to work,” Walken revealed to The Guardian in 2013. “So, in that sense, I suppose I’m a regular guy.”
His offbeat disposition makes him an entertaining actor regardless of the movie’s quality
Walken’s film career began in the 1970s. He broke through to the mainstream via roles in Annie Hall and The Deer Hunter, the latter earning him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Those wildly different characters — one an uneasy brother with dark-driving fantasies, the other a traumatized Vietnam veteran — encapsulate Walken’s appeal throughout the years.
His singular cadence makes him equally capable of portraying menacing criminals, blockbuster villains, and absurd oddballs with a sense of humor based on Walken’s special delivery of his lines. The actor is best known for his grimier fare, but his second Oscar nomination was for his role in Steven Speilberg’s enjoyably breezy Catch Me if You Can. And he’s been more than willing to play with his public persona through appearances in Saturday Night Live sketches and Wedding Crashers.
Walken has also earned Primetime Emmy nods (for Sarah, Plain and Tall and Severance) and a Tony Award (for James Joyce’s The Dead and A Beheading in Spokane).
He might not have the juice in the same way he did at his peak, but the excitement over Walken’s casting in Dune: Part Two proves fans still respect his on-screen charisma.
