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Christopher Walken

Patron Saint of the Cowbell

"Our great country is in a terrible downward spiral. We're outsourcing jobs, bankrupting social security, and losing lives at war. We need to focus on what's important-- paying attention to our children, our citizens, our future. We need to think about improving our failing educational system, making better use of our resources, and helping to promote a stable, safe, and tolerant global society. It's time to be smart about our politics. It's time to get America back on track."

About Me

Born to immigrant parents in New York, Ronald Walken was the youngest of three boys. While his father ran the little bakery he owned, the boys' mother was a member of the Stage Mothers' Society and was always bringing the little ones to television auditions and photo shoots. Young Ronnie's first role was posing with cats for a calendar when he was three years old, and by the time he was ten, he and his brothers were enrolled in tap dancing classes and regularly performed on television variety shows. In their free time, the boys would help their father with the bakery and go to Manhattan to find little jobs on television and in the theater.

When he was fifteen, during a brief job working with a circus lion tamer, Ronnie appeared in the off-Broadway play J.B. (starring Christopher Plummer). He later graduated from the Professional Children's School and spent a year a Hofstra University on Long Island. The following spring, he and his brother Glenn were cast by their tap instructor in the off-Broadway Musical Best Foot Forward, along with a little girl from their acting lessons, Liza Minelli. For the next two and a half years Ronnie acted in musical theater, and met Georgianne Thon during a touring production of West Side Story. They later married, in 1969. At age 22, Monique Van Vooren, who was working with Walken, decided to call him Christopher, and he stuck with it. The name first appeared on the bill for Baker Street in 1965. Chris then performed a number of dramatic rolls on stage, combating extreme stage fright, and went on to win the Clarence Derwent Award for his performance of King Phillip in The Lion in Winter.
Christopher's film career began when he was 25, with minor roles in a number of films, including that of Annie's suicidal brother in Woody Allen's Annie Hall. Soon after, he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in The Deer Hunter, and also starred in the critically loathed Heaven's Gate. His career never slowed down, and Chris continued to be cast in a wide range of films, including the last MGM musical, Pennies from Heaven. Choreographed by his former tap teacher, this movie earned him glowing reviews from critics and legendary tap-dancers Fred Astaire and Gene Kelley. Christopher Walken has acted in nearly one hundred films in his lifetime, and well over that many stage performances, encompassing every style and genre imaginable.
He and his wife are happily married and working around the world. Recently, in addition to becoming one of SNL's most popular hosts, Walken has averaged nearly five movies per year, testament to his skill, dedication, and talent even at the age of sixty-two. Now, more active than ever, Christopher Walken has realized that the state of his country is in dismay, and the politicians in charge care less for the citizens they serve and more about fattening their resumes and campaign chests. Having residences both in rural Connecticut and upper-west Manhattan, he sees that all walks of life are becoming disgruntled and apathetic towards the American government, and feels a duty, as a child of the American public, to restore the peace, prosperity, and greatness of the United States.

Campaign Finance Reform

"I believe that campaign finance is a very tough issue, with good points on both sides; but I feel, as a wealthy American, that I should have no more say than even the least fortunate American citizen. Free speech in politics is about the voices of all those who support you, not who supports you with the biggest voice."

Military Funding

"I am a huge supporter of the military. I have always thought of them as our guardians, and when our guardians are making less than the poverty line, and children are suffering because their parents decided to join the military, well, I get very upset. I feel that instead of sending billions to the Pentagon's pet projects, it should go to the troops."

Stem Cell Research

"I'd met Chris Reeve several times before he died, and after having met him it is tough to be against [stem cell research]. I am for human knowledge and expansion of human life. If stem cells are one way to do that, I cannot support legislation to restrict this potentially life-saving research."

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