Christian Bale (12 page)

Meanwhile, 2,200 miles from Los Angeles, in Toronto, my own connection to Christian was just beginning, though I hardly knew at the time how deeply involved I'd eventually become with him and his family.

I went to see
Newsies
with my friend Laurie Reid at the Kingsway Theater. We were both movie buffs with broad tastes. I loved everything from big epics to sci-fi (especially
Star Trek
) to David Lynch. Laurie was also a Trekker and a huge fan of old Hollywood musicals, and she was very curious about
Newsies
as Disney was proudly touting it as the first major studio musical to be released in decades. You'd have to look back to
Grease
(1978) or
Hair
(1979) for a major studio live-action musical. By the time disco died, the live-action musical had its last dying breath with the bomb
Xanadu
(1980). As Laurie's future husband, the Canadian crime novelist John McFetridge, would rather have had an appendectomy before watching a musical, Laurie and I wound up seeing
Newsies
on our own.

To say that Laurie was smitten by Christian Bale's performance would be an understatement. She loved his singing voice and she loved his dancing. She told me that Christian looked like a young Jimmy Stewart, who happened to be her favorite actor from Hollywood's Golden Age. He was unlike any other young actor emerging at that time. And when we discovered that this
New York-accented street kid was the same English schoolboy from
Empire of the Sun
, we were both very impressed.

For movie buffs like Laurie and me, Christian Bale appeared to be a classy young actor who was much more talented than his heavily hyped (or self-promoting) American competition at the time—actors like Ethan Hawke, Christian Slater, Stephen Dorff, or Skeet Ulrich. With Christian's singing and dancing talents, and his uncanny ability to reproduce accents, he was like a throwback to Hollywood's golden era when actors had to have a range of skills and do more than just sulk, squint, and look “intense.”

Christian was like our own personal discovery. In Canada, if you were an Anglophile, you would've seen all the Merchant Ivory films like
Howard's End
, but here was young Christian, an English talent who wasn't part of that Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter crowd. Christian truly seemed to be an undiscovered young talent.

So we formed the Society to Appreciate Obscure British Actors and made it our mission to watch the films of the actors who were underappreciated and unnoticed by Hollywood. Our favorite actors at the time included Daniel Day-Lewis, Rupert Graves, Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston, and Ewan McGregor. While American movie buffs were worshipping at the altar of Tarantino, we were lining up at the Toronto Film Festival to watch the latest from Danny Boyle and Stephen Frears.

It's funny that, for me, if Christian had not done a movie about China and, for Laurie, a couple of musicals, we probably would not have noticed or been so invested in his young and struggling career.
Empire of the Sun, Newsies, Swing Kids, Prince of Jutland—
could a budding actor sustain much more failure without giving up completely?

In retrospect, we were caught up in a moment that moved us from movie buff to fan. A movie buff can talk movies all day
long—who's their favorite actor, director, genre. A fan, as we saw it, was a movie buff who actively sought movies by a favorite actor or director. And since we were worried that Christian's career was headed for disaster, we felt he needed fans.

The good news? I was in marketing communications for the largest software company in Canada at the time. I had experience in developing online marketing campaigns, so it felt natural for me to spread the news of Bale in cyberspace. On the Internet, we crossed paths with other movie buffs who had noticed Christian's performance in
Newsies
and
Swing Kids
. But what many people didn't realize, in the days before the IMDb, was that he was the same actor from
Empire of the Sun
. AOL had a large message board area dedicated to Talk About Actors. So did CompuServe. Once we started talking about Christian and his other films, we were quickly converting those movie buffs into Bale fans. We turned musical buffs into
Newsies
fans. We turned Spielberg buffs into
Empire of the Sun
fans. World War II movies your thing? Check out
Swing Kids
. It's like
Cabaret
-lite! Check out
Treasure Island
at your video store! In those days, message boards had a maximum number of posts, so AOL and CompuServe would start new folders for our favorite actor. That's how the seeds of the Christian Bale fan community—Baleheads—were sown. It was audience creation at the grassroots level.

We decided to write Christian letters of appreciation, laud, and encouragement. (Okay, that's just a fancy way of saying “fan letter.”) In the years before there were Web sites with agency addresses like fanmail.biz or IMDbPro, we hit the bookstores to find an address for Christian and sent off our letters to his old agent in London.

Fatefully, I received a reply.

It was spring of 1993 when I arrived home to find an envelope with a Los Angeles postmark waiting for me. I opened the
envelope to find a handwritten letter from Christian Bale. I was surprised. It was common belief that actors didn't personally respond to fan mail but here was a letter, handwritten no less, from Christian himself. Christian thanked me for my support and wrote that his most recent film,
Prince of Jutland
, had not yet found a distributor.

I decided to send another note to Christian. I told him about our Society for the Appreciation for Obscure British Actors (yes, I did momentarily wonder if he'd be pissed off that we considered him “obscure”) and explained that even though his films were not commercial successes, we were promoting lots of chatter on the Internet—particularly on the movie discussion boards of AOL and CompuServe—about overlooked actors. And Christian was a growing topic, especially once
Newsies
was eventually released on video.

A couple of months later, I received another letter from Christian, explaining that he was busy with a new film,
Little Women
, which was going to shoot in Victoria, British Columbia. He was playing the headstrong boy-next-door, Laurie, opposite Winona Ryder's Jo March. “Perhaps,” Christian wrote, “you've heard of the book?”

Though my friend was annoyed that Christian had still not replied to her letters, she was thrilled that there was a line of communication developing. She and I continued to work diligently on the Internet, posting news about
The Prince of Jutland
and
Little Women
to anyone asking about Christian Bale. And, of course, we told everyone to rent
Empire of the Sun, Treasure Island, Newsies
, or
Swing Kids
. The Christian Bale folders on AOL and CompuServe were multiplying and becoming very active.

So Laurie and I decided to prepare a marketing proposal to help Christian take advantage of this growing online activity. It was a comprehensive marketing plan that would use the Internet to alert his fans to his upcoming movies and to check out what
was available at the video store. If he authorized it, CCBALE (Cinemaphiles for Christian Bale Appreciation, Laud, and Encouragement) would be the first official online presence for any actor.

A month after we sent out the marketing proposal, there was a voice mail message waiting for me. The voice was a deep, rumbling basso; a rich, theatrical English accent.

“Hello? I . . . am . . . David Bale. I am Christian Bale's father. I understand that you have been writing to
my son
. Would you be kind enough to ring us? Yes, ring us at our Manhattan Beach number.”

I replayed the message a number of times before calling Laurie.

“If this is your idea of a joke . . .” I began.

Even Laurie was surprised. No one was expecting a phone call in response to the marketing proposal. A curt rejection letter from the agent? Maybe. A letter asking for more details? Possibly. But definitely not this booming, possibly threatening voice on the phone.

What I remembered the most about the evening when I first called David Bale was that I had to wrap a towel around my head like a turban. I was nervous and sweat was pouring down my forehead. My hair was soaked as I anxiously practiced dialing the number. I had spent several hours analyzing David's voice mail and I was worried that maybe Christian's dad was not at all pleased about my correspondence with his son. On my desk beside the phone, I had a copy of the marketing proposal and a pen ready to take notes.

After I nervously dialed the long-distance number, I still was not quite prepared to hear that same big, booming voice immediately answer.

“Hullo?”

“Yes, hi, hello. Mr. Bale? It's Harrison Cheung from Toronto, Canada, returning your call . . .”

“Why yes, hullo-hullo! Delighted to talk to you, at last, Harrison! Delighted! We've read your wonderful proposal and your bio! Apparently a
fellow
Englishman, I see!” He laughed thunderously.

I moved the phone away from my ear, taken aback by David's volume.

“Yes, Mr. Bale, I was actually born in Scotland. Glasgow.”

“Aye, Glaskie!” David roared. “Amazing! Cheung? Now, that's a Chinese name, is it not, Harrison?”

“Yes, my parents are from Hong Kong.”

“Noble people, the Chinese! Noble! Hong Kong is an extraordinary place! Honor and integrity abound in your culture and heritage! Be proud! Be
very
proud!”

“Thank you, Mr. Bale.”

“Please, call me David! I'm glad you called. You see, Christian and I are fascinated with your proposal, Harrison. Intrigued! We'd like to discuss this at length with you. Using the Internet for publicity is a brilliant idea, brilliant! Do you ever come down to Los Angeles at all?”

“Me? Well, I haven't been to L.A. in a while. I was there—”

“Well, we'll have to have you down! Christian is finishing up in Canada—say, that's where you are, isn't it? Canada! Beautiful country! My father trained in Canada with the RAF. Christian's in Victoria making
Little Women
there with Winona Ryder! Then, he's off to England to visit his mum and he'll be back in L.A. after that. We'll ring you so we can figure out when's the best time to meet.

“I'm so glad we got in touch. I know you and Christian will get along very well, indeed! A godsend! A
Chinese
Scotsman! From Glasgow of all places! Oh dear, look at the time! I'm terribly sorry but I'm running late for an appointment. Good talking to you, Harrison! Good-bye!”

And with that, David hung up. It was like the aftermath of a tornado. My towel was soaked through.

For the next few months, I kept thinking about Christian and
his unusual father., According to Christian's official bio at the time, David Bale was a former pilot and now Christian's manager. There wasn't much more. As the weeks passed, I wondered if David had forgotten about our proposal. I debated calling again.

I finally heard again from David in the form of a lengthy fax, apologizing for the long lapse in communication. “I've been terribly ill. But by way of explanation,” he wrote, “I'm including a letter from my doctor.” The third page of the fax was a letter from a Dr. Charles Crummer, outlining David's heart problems and requesting people's—particularly bill collectors'—forbearance. This was my first indication of just how bizarre David's behavior could be. He signed off, saying that he would be in touch soon.

By the end of November, David finally called.

“Hullo-hullo! Harrison! It's David Bale.”

“Hi, David! How are you feeling?”

“Much better, thank you. Say, listen. Christian is coming back to L.A. for the premiere of
Little Women
. We'd like you to come to the premiere. We can talk about your proposal. How does that sound? Have you ever been to a Hollywood movie premiere?”

“No . . .” I tried to sound nonchalant, but in my head I was screaming,
A Hollywood movie premiere? Are you kidding
?

“It's great fun. Now, do you have a nice suit? You need to dress up for these things.”

“Oh, yes, of course . . .”

“Wonderful. The premiere will be Sunday, December the 11th. Why don't you come down on Saturday and stay until Monday? How does that sound?”

“December 11th? That's
next
weekend.”

“Yes, please say you can make it. I've booked you in a nice English hotel near us. Barnabey's. You'll love it. It's like an old English inn. We can go for a pint and talk about your marvelous proposal. Do you drink?”

“No, actually, I don't.”

“Smart lad! Good boy! It's an evil, a sin really. But I'm long past redemption.” David chuckled. “And Christian—he drives Americans mad because he simply cannot get drunk. My son can drink pint after pint and he cannot get drunk! It's absolutely amazing, his constitution!”

By the time David had blown through his invitation and hung up, I had made up my mind to go. How could I pass up an invitation to a Hollywood premiere?

I left Toronto on a cold, miserable December morning, and stepped off the plane to the exotic scents of Los Angeles. I could smell jasmine in the air when I stepped outside the Arrivals at four o'clock in the afternoon. I gave the taxi driver the address to Barnabey's Hotel in Manhattan Beach and was surprised at how close it was to the airport. Just half a mile south on Sepulveda Boulevard, Barnabey's sat at the corner of Rosecrans, across from the Manhattan Village Mall. From the outside, the hotel didn't look particularly impressive—rows and rows of faded pink shuttered windows on a two-storey building facing the street.