Now that Oscar season is in full swing let’s reflect on some entertainers who have two things in common..the Academy Awards and being born in Astoria.

Christopher Walken (his real name is Ronald) was born in Astoria on March 31, 1943 and lived with his family at 30-83 29th St. His parents were Rosalie Russell, a Scottish immigrant from Glasgow and Paul Wälken, a German immigrant who defended from a long line of bakers. And so with their savings earned after working various jobs for several years the couple purchased a storefront at 29-13 Broadway and opened their family business in 1931 which they called Ideal Bakery. A decade later, the bakery moved a couple doors down to 29-17 Broadway and reopened as, Walken’s Bakery and Cafe.

Walken remembered working at the bakery with his family at three in the morning making jelly donuts. His brother Glenn would own the bakery until the late 1980s. Christopher Walken’s mother, Rosalie, lived in Bayside until she died in 2010 at the age of one hundred and four. “She could never really break with Astoria,” Walken said in an interview with the New Yorker magazine in 2010. “I’m kind of the same way.” Walken would move on from the baking world dropping out of Hofstra University after landing small roles on Broadway. Soon Astoria residents delighted seeing Walken on the big screen in the 1970s in films like The Anderson Tapes (1971), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), Annie Hall (1977 and winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture). His breakthrough role was a troubled Vietnam War veteran in The Deer Hunter (1978) which would also win an Oscar for Best Picture and Walken’s performance earning him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He would be nominated again for Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can (2002). Walken still returns to the neighborhood for a visit.                                                                                       

Gordon Willis was born in Astoria on May 28, 1931 and was one of the most famous cinematographers in American chime history. Willis was known in the industry as the “Prince of Darkness” because he would film scenes using low levels of light creating a dark and sinister tone never before seen in big budget Hollywood movies. Willis graduated from Bryant High School and just two decades later found himself as the cinematographer for one of the greatest movies ever made, The Godfather (1972). Willis was nominated for an Oscar for Best Achievement in Cinematography for that film and would later be cinematographer on The Godfather, Part II (1974) and The Godfather, Part III (1990) for which he was nominated again for an Oscar. He received an honorary Academy Award in 2009 for his lifetime achievements which also included the Best Picture nominee All The President’s Men (1976) and Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979). He died in 2014 at the age of 82.                                                                                    

Television star George Maharis was born in Astoria on September 1, 1928 to immigrant parents from Greece. Maharis attended Flushing High School. Maharis developed a talent for singing at an early age and would go on to record hit songs in the 1960s. His debut album, “George Maharis Sings!”, was on the Billboard’s Album Chart for 29 weeks in 1962, peaking at number 10. Maharis would study at the Actors Studio with Sanford Meisner and Lee Strasberg. In 1960 he landed the lead role in the hit TV drama Route 66 for which he was nominated for an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Series. That same year he co-starred in the movie Exodus with Paul Newman. The film was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.                                                     

One of the most surprising connections to Oscars and Astoria is Irish actor Patrick McGoohan. Known for his thick Northern Ireland accent, McGoohan co-starred as English King Edward Longshanks along with Mel Gibson as the title character in Braveheart (1995) which won the Best Picture Oscar. One exception is that McGoohan, known for his thick accent which is distinctly from Carrigallen, County Lietrim, he was actually born in Astoria on March 19, 1928. Just after he turned a year old, McGoohan moved with his parents from Astoria and went back to Ireland where he lived for a good portion of his life. He passed away in 2009 at the age of 80.                                                                   

Astoria is also home to one of the greatest Broadway entertainers in history. Ethel Merman was born Ethel Agnes Zimmermann on January 16, 1908, the only child of German immigrants Edward and Agnes Zimmermann. Ethel’s father was a bookkeeper, who lived to age 98. Her mother was a schoolteacher, and lived to be 91.                   

Her family attended church at the Church of the Redeemer 30-14 Crescent Street, where she was baptized. Ethel Merman attended PS 4 and graduated from Bryant High School, class of 1924, and was going to be a secretary. Merman lived with her family in an apartment building at 29-08 31st Ave. in Astoria. Blessed with a powerful mezzo-soprano voice and perfect enunciation, she started performing gigs in nightclubs and changed her name from Zimmermann to Merman to better fit it on a marquee sign. For the next five decades Merman would become a superstar on both the stage and screen. She would become known as, “The First Lady of the musical comedy stage” and introduced many standards to Broadway musicals, including “I Got Rhythm”, “There’s No Business Like Show Business”, and “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”. Her most famous starring roles were in the musical Gypsy and Hello, Dolly.                                                       

She passed away at age 76 on February 15, 1984. The 56th Academy Awards, held on April 2, 1984, ended with a performance of “There’s No Business Like Show Business” as a tribute to her legendary career. The auditorium at Bryant High School is named in her honor.                                                                                                                              

Astoria is also home to the Kaufman Astoria Studios, the largest soundstage and production facility on the East Coast where many Oscar nominated film have been produced including Sidney Lumet’s The Verdict (1982 and Best Picture nominee), Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990 also a Best Picture nominee) and Scent of a Woman (1992) for which Al Pacino won the Oscar for Best Actor. And across the street from Kaufman Studios is the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts High School where the future Oscar winners are now in the early stages of their careers.