Paul Walker: Hollywood hero
and heartthrob
1 December 2013 Last updated at 13:23
Walker was best known for playing Brian
O'Conner in the Fast & Furious films
Actor Paul Walker, who has died at the age
of 40 in a car crash in California, was a
Hollywood heartthrob and action hero.
The Fast & Furious franchise has become one
of Hollywood's biggest hits thanks to its
reliable formula of high-speed chases,
underground gangs and thrilling stunts.
At the heart of the high-octane drama in five
out of the six films was Paul Walker, who
played Brian O'Conner.
Walker was brought up as a Mormon near Los
Angeles and it was his parents who pushed him
into modelling and acting.
When his mother, a model, started taking him
to her photoshoots as a toddler, he ended up
getting more work than she did. The young
Walker went on to appear in adverts
throughout his time in elementary school.
His father was not in showbusiness - he was a
sewer contractor. "My parents never looked at
my acting as a career," Walker said. "They saw
it as a way to help provide for the household."
Walker's real passion, though, was surfing.
That led him to study as a marine biologist at
college, but he soon dropped out to pursue a
life of, as he once put it, "smoking and living
out of a garage".
Walker was in Fast & Furious 6 with Vin Diesel
(centre) and Dwayne Johnson
The acting world called once more when his
former agent looked him up to ask him to
audition for a role as a surfer in the CBS
spiritual drama Touched By An Angel.
A week later, he got a small part in the time-
travel caper movie Pleasantville, which starred
Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon.
"I figured that acting was a great way to make
money so I could continue surfing and avoid
real responsibility," Walker later said.
His roles gradually got bigger as he appeared
in films like Varsity Blues, playing a high
school football star; She's All That, a
lightweight teen love story; and The Skulls,
about a murky secret society on an Ivy League
college campus.
The Skulls was produced by Neal Moritz and
directed by Rob Cohen, who told him he
reminded them of a young Steve McQueen and
encouraged him to take his acting more
seriously.
Walker, with co-stars Vin Diesel, Michelle
Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster
So when Moritz and Cohen came to cast their
next film, set in the underground street racing
scene of Southern California, they turned to
Walker.
"They told me I could play a cop, drive fast
cars, make out with a beautiful leading lady
and they'd actually pay me," the actor said. "I
mean, hey, man, a young guy's fantasy come
true."
In The Fast and the Furious, Walker appeared
as the undercover cop who infiltrates a street-
racing gang led by Dominic Toretto, played by
Vin Diesel.
The film was a surprise smash hit, with its first
weekend takings in North America surpassing
its $38m (£23m) budget.
Walker recalled: "Neal Moritz called me [on
the] opening night screaming, 'It's a cultural
phenomenon!'"
Disaster charity
When Vin Diesel bowed out of the sequel after
a pay dispute, Walker moved centre stage. This
time, his character used his street-racing
abilities to bust a Miami money-laundering
cartel.
The franchise looked set to be short-lived
when Walker sat out the third instalment. A
fourth film seemed likely to go straight to DVD
until Diesel and Walker agreed to return.
A fifth and sixth were made, with the pair
teaming up for ever more elaborate high-speed
escapades across the world. The series' success
grew again, with the sixth film the most
popular yet.
Filming has started on a seventh, and just
before his death Walker even said the studio
had plans to take the total to 10 Fast &
Furious films over the next decade.
In between filming that franchise, Walker's
other movies included the festive drama Noel;
the diving thriller Into the Blue, alongside
Jessica Alba; Eight Below, about an Antarctic
husky trainer who has to rescue his stranded
dogs; and World War II film Flags of Our
Fathers.
His latest movie Hours, in which he plays a
father struggling in the wake of Hurricane
Katrina, is due out later this month.
Outside the film studio, Walker set up his own
charity to help the victims of natural disasters.
Reach Out Worldwide has sent teams of skilled
volunteers to help after earthquakes in Haiti
and Chile, a tsunami in Indonesia in 2010 and
the recent Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines.
It was while attending a fundraising event for
Reach Out Worldwide on Saturday that Walker
died. He was a passenger in a Porsche that
crashed, killing the car's driver as well as the
actor.
Walker is survived by his 15-year-old daughter