Chris Walken is Not a Psychopath: Part 2

In Three Stages, volume one of my celebrity memoir trilogy, I wrote a lot about

Chris Walken

but left this story out since it happened much after the ending of that book.

LesJamesChrisWalkenAndMe

Les James, Chris Walken & me West Side Story 1965

Late in ’97 I saw a rerun of Inside the Actors Studio with Chris as the guest. I was so taken with how little he had changed, how easy, unpretentious and natural he was I simply had to get in touch with him. So I found out who his agent was, wrote a note to him requesting that he read it and then, if he deemed it appropriate, forward it to Chris Walken. Here’s the letter.

8 Feb 97

Dear Chris,

Watching you on Inside the Actor’s Studio brought back a flood of memories; your continually whacking Stan Mazin in the mouth at the start of the Rumble causing him to be nicknamed “the stitch queen”, hoisting your inert body onto my shoulder and running up various aisles at the end of Act I (For a skinny guy you were amazingly heavy.), the motorcycle gang who wanted to fight us in Connecticut, you and me standing outside the theatre in Providence watching cows graze – You said, “Ever shoot one of those things? They drop (flat gesture) like that.” — bizarre. Your sense of humor hasn’t changed a bit. You see the world obliquely not straight on as … human beings do.

That’s what I see in most of your performances, that private twinkle, the blend of the observer and observed, performer and audience. One might need to know, or have known, you to fully read and appreciate that aspect of your work but it is, I think, a primary ingredient of your success. It’s what makes you a “Chris Walken type”.

I know it was ’65 because that was my first summer in New York. Holy shit: 32 years! WESTSIDE STORY; Seventeen weeks seemed like a long gig then. We’re both a little thicker but you still look like Chris and I still look like Ben. Of course it’s a lot easier for me to remember you than you me seeing as how you’re a famous actor and I’m a not famous producer-director-cameraman-editor-writer. I didn’t quit performing because I wasn’t working. I just realized that it wasn’t my “calling” as it is yours. I’m glad it is your calling. You’ve given us all so much and made us, in your words, “better off” for the experience.

It would be wonderful to get together with you for lunch, or coffee or whatever. If you’re not interested; so be it. Hell, you may not even remember me and if you do you may not give a shit. I can assure you that I’m not a “star-fucker”. I simply find that looking back on my life there are amazingly few old acquaintances I’m interested in reviving. I’ve never been very good at “keeping in touch” with people I like, usually colleagues I work with and enjoy. Life drifts us apart but memory remains as contact declines. Getting older and, one hopes, wiser I begin to treasure those faded relationships and am now on something of a mission to resuscitate a few of them.

Heck, I don’t even know if you’ll get this letter. I hope you do and I hope you respond.

Fondly, Ben Bryant

He called on March 4th from LA and we had a fun conversation. We still haven’t had that coffee date. Get in touch, Chris.

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