Unlike many, Christian Bale successfully made the transition from child performer to adult actor with a minimum of difficulty and was poised to become one of the breakout stars in the new millennium.

The Welsh-born Bale started performing at age nine when he landed work in British television commercials. The following year, he acted on stage in alongside Rowan Atkinson in the comedy "The Nerd". Additional commercials and a part as a spoiled brat on the British series "The Heart of the Country" followed before he made his American TV debut as Alexis, the hemophiliac heir to the Russian throne, in the NBC miniseries "Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna" (1986), starring Amy Irving. Ironically, it was Irving`s then-husband, director Steven Spielberg, who would offer the young thespian his breakthrough role in "Empire of the Sun" (1987). Winning the lead in this screen version of J G Ballard`s autobiographical novel over some 4,000 other hopefuls, Bale delivered one of the best juvenile performances ever captured on film. As Jim, a pampered upper-class British adolescent living in China, he was required to shoulder the bulk of the film. Bale`s character ages and undergoes enormous shifts of circumstances after becoming separated from his parents--moving from his privileged world to a life in an internment camp where he finds surrogate parents. His was the performance that anchored the film and critics and audiences paid close attention to his extraordinary work.

Bale continued to stretch as an actor and eschewing the usual teenager roles. He undertook Shakespeare playing the boy who assists Falstaff (Robbie Coltrane) in Kenneth Branagh`s stirring "Henry V" (1989) before playing Jim Hawkins to Charleton Heston`s Long John Silver in the TNT movie "Treasure Island" (1990). After a short hiatus, the tall, extremely handsome Bale returned to features as the pro-labor leader of a band of urchins hawking newspapers in the ill-fated Disney musical "Newsies" (1992). Again, he was asked to carry much of the film and he acquitted himself nicely, proving to have a pleasant if unremarkable singing voice and capable of executing intricate dance steps. The latter came in handy for "Swing Kids" (1993), an ambitious and slightly overdone period drama about a group of German youths enamored of American big band music. Bale essayed the most intriguing of the group--a character who denounced his friends and embraces Nazism. While the overall film proved problematic, he delivered a compelling and nuanced performance.

It took his turn as the wealthy, spirited Laurie, the neighbor to the March sisters, in Gillian Armstrong`s version of "Little Women" (1994) for audiences to fully embrace him. Offering a charismatic and energetic male presence to the proceedings, he found himself wearing the label of "heartthrob".

As the 90s wound down, Bale continued to offer fascinating characterizations. Attempting not to repeat himself, he walked off with the acting honors as a mentally disabled youth in Christopher Hampton`s uneven adaptation of Joseph Conrad`s "The Secret Agent" (1996). That same year he also appeared as a young swain in Jane Campion`s " Portrait of a Lady".Undertaking his first real "adult" role, he starred as a married man questioning his life choices in the tart "Metroland" (1997; released in the USA in 1999. Shot over 27 days, "Metroland" offered the actor one of his richest roles, as he was required to port

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