Christian Bale

by Harrison Cheung

  The house itself was about 1,800 square feet, had four bedrooms and three bathrooms put together in an unusual layout, thanks to additions from previous owners. You entered the front door and immediately to your right was the staircase to the upper floor. There was a small living room and fireplace, which had a guest room and bathroom to the left by the garage door. Once you walked farther back to the kitchen, there was a dining room that led out to the pool. Off the kitchen was another bedroom where David slept.

  Christian had the upstairs master bedroom, with a balcony that overlooked Oak Avenue. His sister Louise had the smaller second bedroom. Brother and sister shared the upstairs bathroom. From the bathroom window, you could climb out over the first floor and jump into the pool—something David sensibly forbade!

  Oak Avenue would serve a couple of goals. First of all, David wanted a secure home base for Christian and Louise. He liked its seclusion from the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles. And David felt that the house’s distance from Hollywood would also protect Christian from the intrusively competitive costars who would ask to drop over and read scripts with Christian. He was learning very quickly that those friendly visits were actually competitive scouting to see what scripts your agent was sending you.

  With the beach just blocks away, the house on Oak Avenue was like a little paradise. But secondly, by buying a house, he had anchored Christian to California and committed the teenager to a mortgage of $3,300 a month—a considerable amount today, a tremendous amount in 1992! Christian would have no help with the house expenses as David had entered the U.S. on a visitor’s visa and wasn’t legally allowed to work, and Louise had just enrolled on her student visa to study Drama at El Camino College in nearby Torrance.

  Adding to Christian’s expenses, David leased himself a VW Jetta while Christian drove a Jeep Cherokee—something Louise teased him about because SUVs were not yet in vogue. That didn’t change until 1993 when Spielberg’s Jurassic Park helped spark the Ford Explorer/SUV rage.

  Back in England, Jenny was feeling very lonely with the sudden changes in her family. Her eldest, Sharon, had moved to London with her musician boyfriend. And her two youngest had up and left with their father to move 6,000 miles away. With the eight-hour time difference between England and Los Angeles and with David always screening the calls, Jenny found it increasingly difficult to communicate with her children.

  I remember David had an interesting way of screening Jenny’s calls. He’d often cover the receiver with his hand and say to Christian: “Do you want to talk to mum? I think she wants money.” And Christian, by reflex, would wave him off.

  But the Oak Avenue house was an important step in establishing a base in the U.S. David outlined their plans:

  • Establish a home base for security.

  • Draw up plans for short-, medium-, and long-term future.

  • Sort out finances.

  • Get visas.

  • Establish Christian’s acting career; get an agent, a manager, and discuss aims and projects.

  • Learn how to promote and publicize Christian to the industry and publicize him carefully.

  If you’ve ever moved to another city, state, or province, you know how much work it is to set up a new home. In addition, David had to register Christian with all the appropriate agencies and organizations like the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG) so that they’d have his new agent and contact information in case producers or casting agents were looking for Christian. David was under the gun to set up their new home while Christian was still traveling back and forth between England and L.A. He wanted to make sure that Christian felt happier and more at home in Manhattan Beach than in England.

  Newsies was shot in mid-1991, and then later in the year, Christian headed to Prague, Czechoslovakia, to shoot his second Disney picture, Swing Kids. The Disney folks recommended to David that Christian sign with a publicist to prepare for Newsies’ anticipated 1992 theatrical release. Christian was adamant that he did not want one. In Hollywood, personal publicists are either paid by a project (to promote during a specific event, like a film release) or by a retainer. Additionally, every studio has a publicity team that works on a film’s release—a studio expense that doesn’t cost the actor. Though David set up exploratory meetings with a couple of publicists in L.A.—most notably with Joaquin Phoenix and Josh Hartnett’s publicist, Susan Patricola—Christian declined to sign with any of them because of the added expense and the feeling that they could make do with free studio publicity whenever a movie was ready to be released. In between movie releases, Christian saw no need for any coverage.

  Christian said to a reporter: “It was definitely a strategy. I like not being in magazines, not being seen on TV, except when I’m actually in a film.”

  Unlike other young Hollywood hopefuls, Christian was no publicity whore. Publicity was obviously a touchy subject for Christian since his Paris breakdown. David gingerly tried to reach magazine editors on his own. His seventeen-year-old son needed to build an American fan base that had forgotten him by name since 1987’s Empire of the Sun. With Christian starring in an upcoming Disney movie, David managed to get a couple teen publications to notice. Magazines like Bop and Teen Beat were interested in covering the handsome English teen—would he pose shirtless with a surfboard? Those kinds of inquiries, David knew, would send his son scurrying into a corner.

  Christian was still flying back and forth between London and L.A. as he would finish a project, go “‘home” to visit his girlfriend, Natalie, and his mum, then back “home” to L.A. for any auditions David and the agent had arranged. This multinational arrangement added to Christian’s internal debate about his future. No surprise, while he was in England, Jenny and Natalie warned Christian to be careful with his money. It was clear to them that David had control of all his funds. And when Christian was back in California, David started his own attack, reminding Christian that his mother was excessively English in her negativity and didn’t have confidence in her son’s abilities as an actor.

  Christian, David, and Louise often complained about English negativity compared to America’s can-do spirit. David was particularly anti-England, especially when he lived there under the Conservative Thatcher era. He felt that England was still very class conscious—in particular, how one’s accent, whether it be posh or Cockney, could betray your education and social standing. “Who decided,” David wondered, “this English system of haves and have-nots?” In fact, Christian agreed with his father after his post-Empire of the Sun fallout. It seemed that people were happy to see him fail—back to his station, if you will. But the unpredictability of possible Hollywood movie stardom meant that a poor kid from Wales could suddenly catapult into fame and fortune.

  Long an influence in her brother’s life, elder sister Louise had this to say about living in America versus England: “I love living in America, and especially in Los Angeles, I love this city. I much prefer the weather, the lifestyle, the ocean, and the variety of people. I don’t miss the English weather, or the negativity which is very prevalent in the cities.”

  The tug-of-war between David and Jenny over Christian swung decidedly in David’s favor in 1992. When Christian returned to Bournemouth from a trip to Switzerland in January, he discovered that his two beloved pets, a cat named Kouky and a bird named Percy, were gone.

  “Christian was so depressed,” David recalled, “but I told him that it wasn’t his fault. In fact, I blamed his mum, Jenny, for not caring enough, for not being responsible.” To assuage his son’s pain, David bought Christian instructional sex books and CDs of rave music for his eighteenth birthday.

  Jenny made a fateful decision to take a mother-son vacation to Morocco in the spring of 1992 after Newsies’ disastrous opening weekend. She wanted to spend some quality time with her son as she felt it was the end of an era. Her little boy was now an eighteen-year-old young man. If David was right, Christian was on the cusp of stardom in Hollywood. But if she was right, Christian could very well buckle
under the pressure and competition and return to England in defeat. Jenny was very annoyed that David had saddled Christian with the mortgage on the house in Manhattan Beach. David could not legally work. Student Louise was not working. It seemed pretty obvious (to her, at least) that David was using Christian to pursue his own dreams of living in America. That entire home base in America was all dependent on her son, and if David wasn’t careful, Christian could have another breakdown from the same kinds of pressure he had experienced during the doomed Empire of the Sun junket.

  On May 17, 1992, just days after Christian and Jenny returned from their Morocco vacation, and two days after David had bought the house on Oak Avenue, Christian was admitted to emergency at Poole Hospital in Bournemouth. He was vomiting violently and had serious diarrhea. Since he had just returned from Morocco, the doctors suspected that he had drunk or eaten something contaminated. In fact, when a panicky David got ahold of Christian by phone, he was told that perhaps he had eaten something with fecal matter in it.

  “My son was fed shite?” David bellowed at the thought. “This was Jenny’s fault. Everyone knows whilst traveling in a third world country that you don’t drink the water or eat anything suspect!”

  Christian spent a miserable week in the hospital, undergoing test after test. David felt powerless, stuck in Los Angeles while his son was ill in Bournemouth. He did not trust Jenny’s ability to take care of his son. And he did not think that Jenny would ask the doctors the right questions.

  Additionally, David was very concerned about the severity of Christian’s illness. Though actors who are members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) have health insurance—and Christian’s care in England would be covered under the U.K. National Health—an actor’s health is an important part of his/her cast-worthiness. David was worried that if Christian developed a reputation of being sickly, no one would cast him. The issue was a pragmatic one. Producers want to hire actors who are healthy enough to complete a movie shoot.

  David blasted Jenny over Christian’s illness. Jenny had to concede that David was very effective working the phones, calling the doctors and pharmacists back in Bournemouth to find the best treatment they recommended for his son. But it was cruel for David to use Christian’s illness against her and her maternal skills.

  A few months later, it would be David’s turn to have his parenting skills put to the test.

  In December of 1992, David put together a trip to take Christian and Louise back to South Africa to meet their grandfather, Philip, and his second wife, Deborah. Christian recalled, “He had cancer, and he was basically hanging on to meet us.” They would spend Christmas and New Year’s touring the Transkei Coast and visiting the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve.

  A few weeks later, Christian was sick again. In mid-January 1993, he was admitted to Entabeni Hospital in Durban, South Africa, with the same symptoms as his previous illness. Could it be malaria? A burst appendix? David was at wit’s end as Christian was transferred from specialist to specialist. Poor Christian spent his nineteenth birthday in a hospital, suffering through another round of tests and painful exploratory surgeries.

  By the time Christian, David, and Louise left South Africa in February 1993, they had also left behind Christian’s medical bills, which David had hoped SAG would pay. Adding to the family misfortune, David’s father died a few months later.

  But by November, David had to respond to Dr. Peter Jeffrey, a family friend of his father’s who had covered Christian’s medical bills.

  David remembered telling Jeffrey: “I can only apologize. I am embarrassed and feel that I should never darken your door again. I owe you the unrepayable: my son’s life and well-being. Millions would be a mere token, and yet I cannot seem to get even your fee to you. I feel that I must perforce have lost the friendship of people who were very dear to me, and to whom I am eternally indebted, and that is very sad.”

  As Christian recovered back in his new bedroom on Oak Avenue in the warm California sunshine, David vowed to protect his son even more.

  [4]

  Newsies

  “You say something bad about Newsies and you have an awful lot of people to answer to.”

  —Christian Bale

  Imagine in some alternate universe, Christian Bale didn’t get the part in Empire of the Sun. Or imagine if Empire of the Sun had been yet another Spielberg blockbuster. How would Christian have handled the superhot stardom that followed the likes of Henry Thomas and Drew Barrymore after E.T.? Would he have had more breakdowns? Would he have ended up a hermit on some deserted island? In this could-have, would-have, should-have scenario, imagine if Christian’s dad had not tricked his son into starring in Newsies. Ah, the mind boggles at the possibilities!

  Newsies is the movie that Christian least likes on his filmography. Whenever a movie is released, there’s the accompanying press kit that contains the lead actor’s biography and filmography highlights in a couple paragraphs. Are you surprised that actors like to leave off any stinkers from their filmography? Actors and publicists call these: OFR (Omitted From Résumé). Newsies is Christian’s OFR—he is embarrassed by it. And yet the fan-beloved Newsies was the pivotal movie that would launch his stardom on the Internet. And in that alternate universe without Newsies, Christian would not have become Batman and would not have married his wife. And a guy by the name of Zac Efron would not be the star he is today. I promise, I’ll explain!

  In early 1991, David had traded Christian’s U.K. agent for an American agent with eyes firmly on a goal to move to Hollywood. Just a few years earlier, Christian was telling the press that his heroes were James Dean and Steve McQueen. He had said that he wanted to work with Gary Oldman and Keanu Reeves. So how did he end up starring in a Disney musical?

  David, as Christian’s manager, screened the scripts submitted to his son. He worked combatively with Christian’s agent, like some child-actor parents do. It’s the nature of the game. Many show business parents become suspicious of agents and managers, not entirely convinced that they have their child’s best interests at heart. David wanted to leverage Christian’s experience—having starred in a Steven Spielberg movie and costarred with Charlton Heston—to convince American producers that his son was no untried newcomer. At the age of seventeen, Christian had worked with the biggest American director in the world on a big movie.

  When the Disney drama Hard Promises came to Christian and David’s attention, David was convinced that this was the starring vehicle to relaunch his son’s career in America. They had just lost out a chance to audition for White Fang, the Disney period action film that helped to build the career of Ethan Hawke. In casting circles, many people thought that Christian looked a lot like a younger Ethan Hawke, so Christian’s agent was going after projects that would have been offered to or passed on by Hawke. That’s how casting rivalries are born. And Christian would have some famous rivals on his way up: Ewan McGregor, Jake Gyllenhaal, and perhaps most infamously, Leonardo DiCaprio.

  But in 1991, the actors Christian and David targeted were Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix. Hawke was another former child actor who was successfully building a career into adulthood. Hawke was only fifteen years old when he starred with River Phoenix in the sci-fi fantasy Explorers. And Hawke would win rave reviews in the prestigious Peter Weir film Dead Poets Society, with Robin Williams and Robert Sean Leonard, Christian’s future Swing Kids costar. Based on the Jack London novel, White Fang would be a surprise box office hit for Disney and Ethan Hawke.

  River Phoenix was the Renaissance man for Young Hollywood of the 1980s and ’90s, since he gained attention for his outstanding appearance in Stand by Me. He had earned an Oscar nomination for Running on Empty (written by Jake Gyllenhaal’s mother, Naomi Foner). He was a vegetarian and environmentalist. He, too, was a former child actor, who had gained mainstream attention costarring in Spielberg’s blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. For the decade after his tragic death in 1993, Phoenix would cast a long shadow over Young Hollywoo
d.

  Christian was closer in age to Hawke. Teenage Christian bore a strong resemblance to teenage Hawke. They had similar coloring, the same cheekbones. In fact, they could have been cast as brothers. And quite often at film festivals in the 1990s, Christian would be mistaken for the young Texan.

  The wisdom in Hollywood is that a good up-and-coming actor should know how to market himself and follow in the footsteps of successful actors. The career stages in show business:

  Who’s Tom Cruise?

  I want Tom Cruise!

  I want a Tom Cruise type!

  Who’s Tom Cruise?

  So for those producers looking for an Ethan Hawke type, David and agent were pleased to offer Christian Bale! Christian met the Disney producers in London to read for Hard Promises, a David vs. Goliath drama about a real-life 1899 newsboys strike in New York. The main challenge at the time would be to speak convincingly with a nineteenth-century New York accent. Christian, a gifted mimic, easily won the part.