Chris Makepeace

Chris Makepeace is a former child star best known for his role in the 1980 high school drama, My Bodyguard. Makepeace was born on April 22, 1964 in Montreal, Quebec. Makepeace's acting career began a role in a 1974 Canadian television special, The Ottawa Valley. Five years later, in 1979, he was cast in the comedy, Meatballs, in which he starred opposite Bill Murray, playing one of the teenage attendees of a summer camp.

Makepeace apparently opened some eyes with the acting in Meatballs, because his next role was as the star of My Bodyguard. In My Bodyguard, Makepeace played Clifford Peache, a kid who moved downtown with his father, the manager of the Ambassador East Hotel, a high-end hotel located in the Gold Coast area of Chicago, Illinois. The Clifford character was sent to the public Lake View High School and was immediately hassled by bullies led by Melvin Moody (played by a young Matt Dillon). The bullies threatened Clifford and extorted lunch money from him. To fend off the bullies, Clifford paid a huge kid in his class, Ricky Linderman (played by Adam Baldwin) to be his bodyguard.

The movie focused on the friendship between Clifford and Linderman after Linderman scared off the bullies. Clifford hung around with Linderman and eventually gained the confidence to fight Moody in a scene at the end of the movie. I first saw My Bodyguard when I was a kid and thought that it was a very good movie. The relationship between Clifford and Linderman seemed wholesome at the time and Clifford looked up to Linderman as his hero of sorts. However, I recently viewed the movie and noticed some nuances that I had naively overlooked in my youth.

There are conspicuous homoerotic overtones in My Bodyguard and the gay tension between Clifford and Linderman is palpable at times. In one scene, Clifford was so interested in Linderman that he followed Linderman home through some rough neighborhoods after school one day. After Linderman saw Clifford, they went riding Linderman's bike together. Look at the movie images below - in the first one, Clifford looks elated as he rides on the back of Linderman's tiny bike, hanging onto Linderman for safety (or pleasure) purposes. In the second picture, their positions are reversed and Linderman appears to be shouting with glee. Despite the overtones in the movie, Linderman and Clifford never consummated their relationship, most likely due to the 1980 release year of the movie.





Makepeace's acting in My Bodyguard was well-received. In his review of the film, critic Roger Ebert wrote that Makepeace's character was "one of the most engaging teen-age characters I've seen in the movies in a long time."

Unfortunately, Makepeace was not able to parlay his critically acclaimed performance into any other meaningful roles. After My Bodyguard, subsequent roles included appearances in made-for-television films and a few crappy feature films, including the 1984 film, The Falcon and the Snowman, and 1986's Vamp. Makepeace is rumored to have slept with the man-ish Grace Jones during the filming of Vamp.

In 1996, Makepeace returned to the big screen in the poorly-received Memory Run (a.k.a., Synapse). Here are some image captures from Memory Run:

Despite some early success, Chris Makepeace's acting career is clearly over. His only acting role since 1998 was a very minor role as a pilot in the straight-to-video movie, Full Disclosure. Perhaps he would be more successful if he returned to his bread and butter - movies with subtle gay themes. For this and the reasons above, Chris Makepeace is one washed-up celebrity!