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(1943-)

Who Is Christopher Walken?
Christopher Walken began working in the theater in his late teens, and by the early 1970s, he had begun working in film. His breakthrough part came with Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977), and he went on to win an Academy Award for his role in 1978's The Deer Hunter, cultivating a full body of work in the '80s. In 1991, he gained his first Emmy Award nomination for his work on Sarah, Plain and Tall. Walken has taken on a variety of projects that include everything from the Steven Spielberg drama Catch Me If You Can (for which he earned another Oscar nomination) to the music video for Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice."

Early Life
Walken was born Ronald Walken on March 31, 1943, in Queens, New York. A performer since the age of 3, Walken started out as a dancer, taking lessons as a child. "It was very typical for people — and I mean working-class people — to send their kids to dancing school.

In a tragic incident over the Easter weekend in Zaragoza, Spain, Father Javier Sanchez, succumbed to injuries after his robes caught fire during an Easter Vigil ceremony.

According to reports, a spark from an ember bowl, believed to have been aided by paraffin, ignited his vestments, leading to severe burns that covered 50% of his body.