Christian Bale (6 page)

But David's social skills would pay off soon enough for both of them.

I
n 1990, after the critical success of
Treasure Island
, which aired as a TNT TV movie in the U.S., Christian's father, David, was buoyed by Christian's show business prospects. Christian clearly still had acting talent!

During this time, however, David was fighting a war with Christian's mother, Jenny, over their son's future—specifically whether it was to be in England or in America. In fact, with Christian's girlfriend, Natalie, on Jenny's side, England presented an
attractive option to the young teenager. Christian would return to England, finish school in Bournemouth, and go to university in England with Natalie. Christian enjoyed writing and had an interest in studying English. Jenny and Natalie pointed out other successful child actors like Jodie Foster and Jennifer Connelly, who had taken a break in their movie careers to go to university. Jenny strongly believed that a university education would prepare Christian for a happier future.

But on the strength of
Treasure Island
and a small part in a 1991 British TV movie,
A Murder of Quality
—which starred Denholm Elliot and Glenda Jackson and was based on a book by John le Carré—David managed to get Christian a U.S. talent agent with Triad Talent Agency. This was no small matter because even though Christian had been the star of a Steven Spielberg movie, it was years ago when he was just thirteen. The cruel reality for many child actors was that they were cast for their prepubescent looks, and often grew into unmarketable adults. Think about the post-Spielberg careers of Henry Thomas (
E.T
.), C. Thomas Howell (
E.T
.), Joseph Mazello (
Jurassic Park
), Jonathan Ke Quan (
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
), or Corey Feldman (
The Goonies
). Fortunately for Christian, he didn't have an awkward public puberty—usually the death knell for many a child actor. Instead, young Christian was filling out nicely, growing into a handsome young man, six feet tall, with cheek bones like a male model.

“I've been lucky,” Christian told a reporter about transitioning through puberty, “because there wasn't a sudden leap where people were saying: ‘Oh what a cute kid,' and then it's: ‘Bloody hell, what happened there, he's got zits and hair in his armpits!'”

With the help of Christian's new U.S. agent, David landed a three-picture deal with Disney. Christian would be paid more than $250,000 for his first picture. Not bad for a seventeen-year-old! Of course, you have to subtract the agent's 10 percent fee,
and David paid himself another 5 percent as Christian's manager. Minus taxes and the costs of headshots, audition travel, clothes, and grooming, and an actor becomes quite an involved little business. And imagine David doing the math if his son could make at least two or three pictures a year! David triumphantly showed off the contract to Jenny, who could no longer argue about her son's potential in the U.S. She was still worried about Christian's inability to handle pressure, but she had to agree with David that life in America was looking very comfortable and prosperous.

Based in Burbank, California, Disney had a long-established reputation for discovering, developing, and debuting new talent since the days of the Mickey Mouse Club. Many first-time directors (like Kenny Ortega) got their start with Disney projects. And Disney movies and television projects were the ultimate launch pad for many a child actor. Ryan Gosling, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Shia LaBeouf, Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Lohan, Miley Cyrus, and Hilary Duff are just a few stars who got their start in the House that the Mouse built.

But the flipside of being a product of the Disney machinery is that these actors would need to work very hard to progress past their Disney years and prove that they weren't just another fresh-faced, generic, bubble-gum tween that came off the Mickey Mouse assembly line. And at the insistence of the Disney marketing machine, these young actors had to commit to Christian's least favorite chore—publicity!

What finally pushed Christian to the U.S. was his father's unflagging confidence in his abilities and the prospects of lots of movie work. It seemed that Hollywood was truly the Land of Opportunity. While a U.K. project might take years to get production funding, here was David Bale waving around a three-picture Disney deal—an opportunity without parallel in England.

So Christian, who considered himself a serious actor and was hoping to play roles like his heroes, Steve McQueen and James
Dean, flew to Los Angeles in 1991 and prepared to shoot
Newsies
, definitely not the groundbreaking film he had in mind.

“It was either go to college or go to California and do
Newsies,”
Christian told
Movieline
. “I decided to do the film.”

“Bale's out of Bournemouth!” the
Daily Echo
headlined when the Bournemouth paper discovered that Christian was making the move to Los Angeles. “But I don't feel at home in Hollywood,” Christian insisted in the article.

Back in England, David and Jenny had split their assets but decided to rent out the house on Capstone Road in Bournemouth. Sister Sharon had moved to London to pursue a music career, and Jenny was suddenly left alone in a big house she could no longer afford. “It broke my heart,” she said. “We'd been a big, fun family and suddenly it was all over.”

In early 1991, David first set up house in North Hollywood. He rented a small ranch-style house at 12315 Erwin Street to be close to the major studios in Burbank and Universal City. It was very convenient for Christian who was shooting
Newsies
at Universal Studios. In fact, this NoHo neighborhood was very popular with out-of-town families who had also relocated to Los Angeles for their children's aspiring movie careers. But David was soon annoyed at the nightly noisy flyovers from police and traffic helicopters and the hookers on the street. “This was not a home for a seventeen-year-old boy!” David told me.

Christian agreed at the time, sounding a little homesick. “L.A.'s too big, we can never walk anywhere so we always have to take the car and I talk to most people on the phone. I just wish I could do more work in England.”

Christian did make one new friend in North Hollywood. While walking around the streets, Christian noticed a very dirty, scrappy-looking Jack Russell cross wandering the sidewalks. He chased the little dog down an alley where, giving up, the dog flopped to the pavement and fell asleep. Sitting in the middle of a dirty alley,
cradling the exhausted dog, Christian looked at the poor dog's worn-down nails and pads. This was a tough little street dog with lots of mojo. Mojo became an official member of the Bale family.

As luck would have it, David was a packrat when it came to making and keeping contacts. David remembered an American fan named Donnie Flaherty, who had actually backpacked his way across England to Bournemouth to look for Christian. Flaherty was a surfer, a photographer, and an aspiring filmmaker. When he had met the Bales in Bournemouth, Donnie had extended an invitation to visit him in Hermosa Beach, one of the three beach cities—Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach—made famous by the Beach Boys' song “Surfin' USA.”

One sunny morning (are there any other kinds in California?), David made his way to Hermosa Beach, met up with Donnie, and ate at Good Stuff, the local breakfast eatery chain. As the two sat near the boardwalk in the morning sun with the Pacific Ocean roaring and crashing nearby, David was hooked. His family just had to live by the water. There would be so much to see and do and Christian could learn how to surf. And with a friend and fan in Donnie, Christian would enjoy California all the more.

Christian told the
Daily Echo
then: “Even though I would like to live in England, I realize I ought to buy here so it looks like I shall buy a place in an area known as Beach Town, which is about an hour from L.A.”

On Friday, May 15, 1992, David bought 3101 Oak Avenue in Manhattan Beach, just north of Hermosa Beach, south of West Los Angeles, which includes Venice, Santa Monica, and Marina del Rey. Christian's monthly mortgage payment was just over $3,300. It was a roomy, two-story, slightly run-down stucco house that was built in 1947 and had an inground pool, a two-car garage, and lots of privacy. Though it was in serious need of updating, compared to their house in Bournemouth, 3101 Oak Avenue was like a tropical resort.

Oak Avenue was a leafy residential street just a block west off busy Sepulveda Boulevard, and right across from the local mall, Manhattan Village. With soaring palm trees and dense greenery, Oak Avenue itself was very quiet and secluded thanks to a privacy wall that ran the length of the entire block. The nearby mall had a Koo Koo Roo restaurant—Christian loved their chicken—a California Pizza Kitchen (the two-in-a-bowl soups were another favorite of Christian's), and an Olive Garden, which featured all-you-can-eat salads and breadsticks. It also had the unfortunately named department store Bullocks, which was the cause of much laughter in the Bale household since “bullocks” had a very different meaning in British slang. And just south of the mall on Sepulveda was the famous (but now defunct) Video Archives store where Quentin Tarantino used to work as a clerk.

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.