Christian Slater was born on July 18, 1967in New York. He was born to the famous stage actor Michael Hawkins and mother Mary Jo Slater a casting director. Christian Slater is a child actor who began his career in NYC on stage and in the world of daytime dramas. He made his acting debut at age eight after his mother cast him in the television soap opera One Life to Live on a lark.
The gifted young performer appeared alongside Dick Van Dyke in "The Music Man" (1980) and appeared in the Broadway musicals "Copperfield" (1981) and "Merlin" (1983). Almost simultaneously, he made inroads in soap operas like "One Life to Live" and "All My Children". In 1985, he joined "Ryan's Hope" as the delinquent boyfriend of Ryan Fennelli (Yasmine Bleeth)--a show on which his father had played the leading character of Frank Ryan in the late 1970s.
His first big screen work was "The Legend of Billy Jean" (1985) and garnered some attention as Sean Connery youthful apprentice in "The Name of the Rose" (1986) and as Jeff Bridges' son in "Tucker: The Man and His Dream" (1988). But it was his sterling turn as the sardonic teenaged killer in the black comedy "Heathers" (1989) that catapulted him to stardom. As Winona Ryder's
boyfriend who matter-of-factly kills several classmates, the actor seemed to be channeling Jack Nicholson, replete with vocal inflections and mannerisms. He continued his ascendant career and solidified his position as a teen idol as the rebellious high school student who operates a pirate radio station in "Pump Up the Volume" (1990). While he held his own against Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman in "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" (1991), he stumbled with leading roles in the duds "Mobsters" (also 1991) and "Kuffs" (1992).
Attempting more adult fare, Slater had his first real romantic role opposite Marisa Tomei in the bittersweet "Untamed Heart" and teamed with Patricia Arquette in the Quentin Tarantino-scripted "True Romance" (both 1993). When actor River Phoenix died suddenly, Slater was tapped to replace the late performer in the coveted role of the reporter in Neil Jordan's "Interview with the Vampire" (1994). He acquitted himself as an idealistic attorney defending an accused killer (Kevin Bacon) in the period drama "Murder in the First" (1995) and proved a serviceable action lead in both "Broken Arrow" (1996) and "Hard Rain" (1997).
Slater's troubled personal life has often threatened to overshadow his career accomplishments. There have been many scrapes with the law, including a 1989 arrest for driving under the influence (with a 10-day jail sentence) and a 1994 infraction for attempting to bring an unlicensed handgun on board an airplane (resulting in community service). But a 1997 incident involving alcohol and drug abuse, attacks on a former girlfriend and a male acquaintance and a scuffle with police landed Slater in deep trouble. He spent over 100 days in a rehabilitation facility while out on bail and then was sentenced to a three-month term in jail followed by three months in a residential rehab center with an additional three years probation. Prior to his arrest, Slater had completed work on the period drama "Basil" (aired on Romance Classics, 1998) and the black comedy "Very Bad Things" (also 1998).
Despite his personal struggles, Slater has maintained a film career starring as a high school geek with a cool secret life in Pump Up the Volume (1990) to the romantic Bed of Roses (1996) to high-voltage
action movies like Broken Arrow (1996).
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