Oscar winning actor Christopher Walken once made a lion sit on command. He was just 16 years old when he spent a summer as a trainee lion tamer with a traveling circus, working with a big cat named Sheba.
“She’d lazily get up and sit like a dog,” he recalled years later. “I like cats. I’ve always liked cats. They’re great company.”
That piece of trivia that has been forgotten by most, resurfaced online recently, prompting fresh fascination with one of Hollywood’s most enigmatic actors. Now 82, Walken has built a five-decade career playing characters who, like a lion in a cage, exude both danger and restraint. “I’m not disturbed,” he told a reporter, when reminded of his many unhinged roles. “I pay my bills. I’ve been married for 55 years. I live in the country. I exercise.”
Acting Legend
Born Ronald Walken in Queens, New York, in 1943 to immigrant parents — a German baker and a Scottish homemaker. Walken started in showbiz early, appearing on TV with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis as a child actor. He trained in dance, later dropping out of college to pursue it professionally. By the mid-1960s, he had changed his name to Christopher and was touring with a production of “West Side Story” when he met his future wife, casting director Georgianne Walken.
Though often cast as disturbed or off-center characters, Walken insists his acting career was unplanned.
“It was kind of an accident,” he said. “I guess you can blame Woody Allen.” In 1977, he played Duane Hall, the eccentric brother in “Annie Hall,” a role that paved the way for the kind of edgy characters he’d play for decades.
That same year, he was briefly considered for the role of Han Solo in “Star Wars.” “The Deer Hunter” (1978) was was the movie that arguably solidified Walken’s place in film history. His portrayal of a traumatized Vietnam veteran earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
“We were put in bamboo cages. It was all for real,” he said of filming the Russian roulette scenes. “Right down to the slap in the face.”
Over the years, Walken became known not only for his intensity but also his deadpan comedic delivery. His “Saturday Night Live” sketch in 2000 as a record producer demanding “more cowbell” from Blue Öyster Cult is now internet legend.
Though regarded as one of Hollywood’s most distinctive presences, Walken lives a notably analog life. He doesn’t own a cellphone, doesn’t text, and doesn’t use email. “A cellphone is like a watch,” he once said. “If you need it, someone else has one.”
Walken recently appeared in “The Outlaws,” Stephen Merchant’s BBC series about a ragtag group of criminals doing community service in Bristol, England. Cast as Frank, a grizzled American ex-con, the role drew parallels to Walken himself: a man out of place but not without charm. Convincing him to take the role required Merchant to drive to Walken’s home in rural Connecticut — he’s famously hard to reach.
Despite a career of supporting roles rather than blockbusters, Walken has amassed a net worth estimated at $50 million, according to multiple sources, including Celebrity Net Worth and Market Realist.
Still, he’s never slowed down. Most recently, he appeared in Apple TV+’s “Severance” opposite John Turturro and Patricia Arquette. Retirement doesn’t interest him. “I love to work,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons we didn’t have children. I probably never will retire.”
And the lion tamer? Just another role in a life full of them, though probably the one with the sharpest teeth.