On January 18, 1979, Michael Beck found God.
He had spent much of his early life resisting the religious upbringing
of his Christian family in Tennessee, instead leaving home to study
acting at London's Central School of Speech and Drama. He had dabbled in
the Eastern philosophies in college, nodded politely when his younger
sister spoke of her devotion to Christ, but spirituality was just
something that never stuck. But now, three weeks away from the release
of his first big Hollywood movie — standing on the precipice of having
everything he had ever dreamt of — Beck was somehow left feeling empty.
During shooting, once Waites was out of the picture, and with his own spiritual awakening still months away, Beck became the star of The Warriors. The chemistry between him and Van Valkenburgh, the female lead, was undeniable, even back in the early days of filming. With the death of Fox, Hill quickly made the decision that Beck's character, Swan, would now not only lead the gang back to Coney Island, but also get the girl.
"He was a very impressive specimen, and he was even more impressive on film," Hill says of Beck's physicality and presence onscreen. "If it wasn't working with Thomas, it wasn't too hard to figure out who was going to be the next [star]."
But hedonism was everywhere on the set, and, all of a sudden, cocaine and women were now available to Beck in even greater quantities as leading man.
"I had money in the bank. I had a couple of girlfriends. I had all the drugs I wanted to take. And my career was on the threshold," he recalls. "All of those things that I wanted were either there or potentially there, in greater intensity going forward. And the knowledge of that, or the realization of that, just didn't answer that hole in myself. That God-shaped hole."
So on January 18, just as The Warriors was about to open, Beck had what they called back home in Tennessee his "come-to-Jesus meeting." He knelt down and prayed to God and was overcome with the feeling that he had to call his sister. He listened one more time to her preach the Gospel, and was changed.
"Like Saul, the scales fell from my eyes," he remembers. "I could see and hear the truth."
From that moment on, Beck would live his life as a born-again Christian.
link to full article
During shooting, once Waites was out of the picture, and with his own spiritual awakening still months away, Beck became the star of The Warriors. The chemistry between him and Van Valkenburgh, the female lead, was undeniable, even back in the early days of filming. With the death of Fox, Hill quickly made the decision that Beck's character, Swan, would now not only lead the gang back to Coney Island, but also get the girl.
"He was a very impressive specimen, and he was even more impressive on film," Hill says of Beck's physicality and presence onscreen. "If it wasn't working with Thomas, it wasn't too hard to figure out who was going to be the next [star]."
But hedonism was everywhere on the set, and, all of a sudden, cocaine and women were now available to Beck in even greater quantities as leading man.
"I had money in the bank. I had a couple of girlfriends. I had all the drugs I wanted to take. And my career was on the threshold," he recalls. "All of those things that I wanted were either there or potentially there, in greater intensity going forward. And the knowledge of that, or the realization of that, just didn't answer that hole in myself. That God-shaped hole."
So on January 18, just as The Warriors was about to open, Beck had what they called back home in Tennessee his "come-to-Jesus meeting." He knelt down and prayed to God and was overcome with the feeling that he had to call his sister. He listened one more time to her preach the Gospel, and was changed.
"Like Saul, the scales fell from my eyes," he remembers. "I could see and hear the truth."
From that moment on, Beck would live his life as a born-again Christian.
link to full article
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