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To celebrate the release of comedy drama He Was a Quiet Man, available now to add to your list, Blockbuster.co.uk's Marshall Julius assesses the life and career of Hollywood bad boy Christian Slater.
In his private life too, though he seems on the whole to be an intelligent, affable and moderately sweet-natured bloke, there's a Mr Hyde to his Dr Jekyll lurking just beneath the surface. A party animal who likes a drink, by which I mean several, he's a Hollywood bad boy with a history of drug abuse and domestic violence, and because of that he's a jailbird too. Ultimately it's hard to pin down whether deep down inside, he's a good or a bad person, and whether career-wise, he's a great actor who doesn't always pick the right projects, or a jobbing hack who frequently gets much luckier than he deserves. I guess it doesn't matter what he's like, unless you're planning on dating him, just as long as he cranks out a hit every few years, in which case I'm content to see him endure in show business.
Christian Michael Leonard Hawkins was born on August 18, 1969 in New York to soap star Michael Hawkins and casting agent Mary Jo Slater. Given his showbizzy parentage, it's no surprise he got started in the business at an early age, appearing in The Edge of Night, a popular Seventies soap opera, when he was just seven years old. Two years after that Christian made his way to the stage, appearing in The Music Man on Broadway, a place he's performed many, many times since. As a teenager, Slater appeared in the musical Merlin, one of the costliest and most notorious flops in Broadway history, so he took a break from the boards to try his luck in Tinseltown.
Following eye-catching roles in 1985's The Legend of Billie Jean and 1986's The Name of the Rose, Slater dropped out of high school in 1987 and moved to Los Angeles to pursue movie stardom full time. He has since passed a General Educational Development course, the equivalent of graduating from high school, after two years of studying at home. "Eventually life just catches up to you," said Slater in 2002, "and whether school teaches it to you or life teaches it to you, you're going to learn your lessons - and I got to learn some lessons."
A devoted fan of Jack Nicholson who counts The Witches of Eastwick (1987) and The Shining (1980) among his favourite movies, Slater has often been accused of doing a Jack impression rather than actually acting. Certainly in Heathers (1989), a teen suicide comedy from director Michael Lehmann, he appeared to be doing a straight Nicholson impression, but regardless the movie was a hit, and Slater was deemed fit for Hollywood stardom. "If I make a move," says the star in his defence, "like raise my eyebrows, some critic says I'm doing Nicholson. What am I supposed to do, cut off my eyebrows?"
Between the features, good and bad, Slater cultivated his bad boy image. "People need something to fill their papers, and I'm happy to provide," joked the star who was charged with evading police, driving under the influence, driving with a suspended licence, and assault with a deadly weapon - his cowboy boots - in 1989. Later, in 1994, he was arrested for taking a gun onto a plane, and in 1997 was sentenced to three months in jail, and 36 months probation, for assaulting his girlfriend Michelle Jonas and a police officer, as well as cocaine abuse. Eventually, after just 59 days, Slater was released for good behaviour, a first for the carousing star.
On a more positive note, Slater's reputation as a stage actor seems to be growing with each passing year, not only on Broadway, but on the West End stage as well. In 2004 he made his London debut in a stage adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest - in the Nicholson role, of course - and most recently earned rave reviews in an adaptation of Swimming With Sharks. Also, speaking as a bloke I can't help but be impressed with some of the women he's courted over the years, from Winona Ryder, back when she was cute, to Samantha Mathis and the gorgeous and talented Christina Applegate. Divorced in 2005 after a five-year marriage to Ryan Haddon, the daughter of Seventies model Dayle Haddon, Christian is also a father of two, Jaden Christopher (born 1999) and Eliana Sophia (born 2001).
Next year Christian turns 40 and it'll be interesting to see if getting older, combined with the responsibilities of fatherhood, have a positive, calming influence on him, or if he sticks to his guns and continues to misbehave for another 40 years. Either way, as long as he manages to crank out the occasional memorable movie, he'll always be worth keeping an eye on.
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