Spartan Profiles: Chris Showerman
GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE
Arnold Schwarzenegger parlayed his splendid physique to movie stardom, great wealth, and now political power. Not everyone can do that, but all signs are positive for Chris Showerman, ’92, star of Disney’s direct-to-video George of the Jungle 2. Last fall Buena Vista shipped 2.2 million copies around the country. Showerman hopes that this sequel can propel him to fame the way the original helped launch the career of Brendan Fraser. “This is my first lead in a studio movie,” says Chris. “It came out of the blue. I was talking to an agent, not mine, and casually mentioned that I was a cross between Superman and George of the Jungle. Two days later, she called me to set up an audition for George of the Jungle 2.”
A native of Stockbridge, Chris was valedictorian of his high school and received scholarship offers, but chose instead to follow his mother’s footsteps and study music at MSU. “I loved the caliber and attitude of the people at MSU,” he explains. “My mother and I had the same teacher, Corliss Arnold, for music theory. He called me his grand-student.”
Chris has great memories of MSU, which he completed in three years. “I was able to get away from my family and discovered who I was,” he says. After teaching music for four years in Lansing, Chris decided to turn professional either as an opera singer or as an actor. He chose the latter, and moved to Los Angeles in 1996, where he became a production assistant serving mostly as a courier. “I was able to get to know L.A. and meet a lot of people,” he says. “You can say I became very intimate with the traffic jams.”
He is currently traveling around the country to cities like Chicago, Kansas, Phoenix and Denver to help publicize the video, doing interviews with regional television and radio news shows. “It would not be bad for me to follow in the footsteps of Brendan Frasier,” he says. “He’s a great actor and an awesome guy.”