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Paul Walker
| Biography |
Tall and athletic, with blond All-American good looks, hailing from Glendale, CA, where he was born, Walker got his start at a young age, modeling and acting in various TV shows including "Charles in Charge", "Diff'rent Strokes", and "Who's the Boss". His film debut came in the 1986 horror spoof "Monster in the Closet", which complemented a part in the short-lived 1986 sitcom "Throb". After high school, where he was active in a variety of sports, Walker opted to study marine biology at a series of California community colleges. Realizing his real love was acting, Walker resumed his long-dormant career in 1993, with a role on the CBS soap "The Young and the Restless". This was followed by a lead role in "Tammy and the T-Rex", which also starred an unknown Denise Richards.
Paul Walker made his big screen starring debut in Disney's "Meet the Deedles" (1998), making use of his background in surfing and various extreme sports for this movie chronicling the adventures of free-spirited twins mistaken for park rangers in Yellowstone National Park. That same year Walker won a secondary role in the critically acclaimed "Pleasantville" as Skip, the object of Reese Witherspoon's pent-up passion. The earnest basketball player is trapped in a black-and-white sitcom world who quickly converts to color with 1990s girl Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) as his missionary.
His classic jock-next-door look made him well suited for this part, as well as his role in the box-office success "Varsity Blues" (1999). As football quarterback Lance Harbor, the actor did a fine job of tracing the fall of the injured local hero who has little left when his high school football career is sidelined. Next he appeared as Freddie Prinze Jr.'s callous friend and rival in "She's All That" (also 1999). Walker turned in an impressive comedic performance as a popular creep who refuses to forget a bet he makes with school golden boy Zack (Prinze) to turn awkward, unpopular Laney (Rachael Leigh Cook) into the prom queen, even as it becomes obvious that Zack is falling for her. He would also be seen that year as Claire Danes' boyfriend in the drama "Brokedown Palace", in which Danes and Kate Beckinsale play Americans imprisoned in Thailand for drug smuggling.
Walker had a career on television long before his film work began. He actually began as a toddler in commercials for Pampers before segueing to guest roles on programs including "Highway to Heaven" (as a mentally-challenged youth in a two-part 1986 episode) and such sitcoms as "Charles in Charge", "Growing Pains" (ABC) and, for the 1986-87 season in the regular role of Diana Canova's teenaged son in the syndicated series "Throb". The young actor took time off for school, making less frequent guest appearances (i.e., a 1991 episode of "Who's the Boss"). He returned to the small screen in 1993 with a recurring role on the CBS soap "The Young and the Restless" and during the 1994-1995 season was seen in the short-lived CBS sitcom "The Boys Are Back" as a retired couple's college bound son whose older brothers move back into the family home.
In 2001, Walker tackled a leading role as he put the pedal to the metal with burgeoning star Vin Diesel in "The Fast and the Furious". A throwback to the forgotten drive-in exploitationers of the past, adrenalized and pumped-up for the new millennium, "The Fast and the Furious" brought Walker into edgier thriller territory as a youthful undercover FBI agent drawn into the world of underground racing gangs. Taking to the road once again, Walker appeared later that year as a teen stalked by a maniacal trucker while on the way to pick-up his dream girl (Leelee Sobieski) in "Joy Ride".
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