Tarzan Rocks!

By Ronda Howard
US Magazine
May 6, 1985

In the Manhattan studio where Christopher Lambert awaits a photo shoot, a resident cat heads straight for his lap, leaps up, stretches out and purrs as she's stroked. That's what many female viewers were in the mood for last year after seeing Greystoke - a retelling for the classic Tarzan tale, with Lambert playing the loincloth-draped savage transformed into the elegant Earl of Greystoke.

"Half of me was an aristocrat, half of me was wild," recalls Lambert in French accented English. That combination could explain the unforgettable sexual intensity that accompanied his otherwise tame love scene with Greystoke co-star Andie MacDowell.

Looking little like Greystoke's exuberant, untrimmed Tarzan, the tall (6'), slight (160 lbs.) Lambert wears wire-rimmed glasses and has his hair cut spiky short.

He exchanges the animal kingdom for a rock 'n' roll jungle in his latest film, but he's still making an impression on the female species. In Love Songs, a French film slated to be released shortly, he plays a singer who steals Catherine Deneuve from her husband.

"Greystoke was so passionate, so extreme," says Lambert, 28. "I wanted to do a small movie, something quieter and more casual, like normal life. Tarzan was just a beginning. Now I must carry on."

The youngest child of a French family whose father was a United Nations official, Lambert was born in New York but raised in Geneva. His parents still live in Switzerland, and his brother and three half sisters are confirmed Europeans.

Lambert moved to Paris at 16. Three years later, he joined the London Stock Exchange. "Working as a broker was interesting for about three weeks," he jokes. "Then it was a bore. I told my father I wanted to become an actor. He gave me enough money to support myself for two years."

Money in hand, Lambert returned to Paris and worked at his own kind of performance. "I went out every night and really acted wild," he says. As his time and bank account were running out, he tagged along with a group of friends auditioning for the three-year acting course at the prestigious Paris Conservatoire. He was the only one selected.

This honor won Lambert further support from his father, but Christopher proved to be an undedicated student, "It was too intellectual, to involved in classical theater," he says. He was thrown out of the Conservatoire in the middle of his third year; the timing was perfect "My friends and parents all were asking, 'When are you going to get a part:' " Within two months of his expulsioin, Lambert was called by director Hugh Hudson to audition for the Tarzan role.

The success of Greystoke means that Lambert now "signs a lot of autographs. But I don't feel really changed. I'm more of a listener now and less of a talker." Offscreen, he's a private person who describes himself as alternately confident and insecure. "It's all or nothing with me," he says. "I can get angry quickly and 30 seconds later bounce back."

In Love Song, Lambert plays a character who bounces between his career as a singer and his Deneuve, 41. "My character is fascinated by family; he never had one, and suddenly he discovers a woman he loves and who loves him. He has to decide whether to live with this older woman and her kids or go back to work as a rock singer."

Could the older woman/younger man theme echo his own life? "I don't look at Catherine Deneuve as an older woman," he demures, "but if a woman had a face like hers, why not? My personal choice would be to find somebody my age or close to my age, but you never know what could happen."

Lambert's choosing to pursue his career at this stage. Living with a woman, old or young, and having children will have to wait, "I grew up in a long-distance family," says Christophe (as he's known in Europe). "My parents traveled a lot and had maids to look after us. I missed my parents often," he adds of his boarding-school childhood. "I think it's important to be with your kids when they're growing up. Right now I couldn't do that."

When he isn't reading scripts, meeting with agents or making movies, Lambert commutes between Paris and New York. He spends his spare time watching American sports on TV, playing tennis and hanging out at video parlors.

"I think when I finally have a child of my own," he says, "I'll play with all his toys. You know, I'm really a kid at heart." Yeah, but somewhere in that kid a savage heart still beats.