Christopher Walken Was Secretly A Lion Tamer Before Hollywood
Before Christopher Walken became one of the most iconic actors in Hollywood history, before the Deer Hunter Oscar, before Pulp Fiction, before the cowbell sketch on Saturday Night Live, he was a 16-year-old kid from Queens who answered a newspaper ad for a circus job and spent a summer in a cage with a lioness. "I didn't run away. I just got a job as a trainee lion tamer," Walken explained in a 2012 Vanity Fair interview. "Who's going to turn that down?" The head tamer, Terrel Jacobs, was also the circus owner and organized an elaborate act in which Walken pretended to be his son and apprentice. They wore matching outfits. Jacobs would perform a lengthy show with a dozen lions, then lead all but one out of the cage, leaving Walken alone with an aging lioness named Sheba. "I would come into the cage and wave my whip, and she'd lazily get up and sit like a dog and maybe give a little roar," Walken said. "I like cats a lot. I've always liked cats. They're great company." He reportedly applied for the job because he liked cats. In interviews, he freely admits Sheba was less wild animal and more elderly housecat. She would rub her head against his leg. He could pet her. The roar was mainly for the audience.
Walken considers the experience one of the most formative of his life. He grew up in a family of performers — his mother wanted her sons to pursue show business, and Walken had already worked as a child actor on television in the 1950s alongside his brothers. The lion-taming job lasted roughly one summer before he moved on toward the acting career that would eventually make him one of the most recognizable voices in cinema. He has worked with Tim Burton, Quentin Tarantino, and the Russo Brothers. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. And somewhere out there, a lioness named Sheba probably deserves a small portion of the credit.
