Christopher Showerman, Star of George of the Jungle 2, Swings into Action to Fight AIDS

by Dale Reynolds

There is something about Christopher Showerman, actor, massage therapist, AIDS volunteer, that makes you want to protect him and see him do well in the world. A quality of strength and goodness that is increasingly rare in our society.

For the past three years now, Showerman has been my acting student and I have become his career mentor. He and I met when I was working out a slightly better way to teach acting: work with young people who have the talent to succeed, but haven’t yet discovered that they need to “get out of their own way” to be at their best. Christopher graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in music, and has sung and played in several bands, but it is in acting that he currently finds the most satisfaction: “Acting helps me to excavate the unexamined parts of who I am. Whenever I’m given the chance to more deeply explore a character, I find it’s ‘me’ tied into that character. What I’ve learned best is having the courage to not adulterate that part of myself for the sake of my ego. When you’re able to live in that truth, while not hiding it from yourself, there is much freedom and joy in the act of letting go and fully enjoying yourself.”

The eighteen months of solid and intensive work we did with him helped land Christopher his ticket to stardom: as the lead in Buena Vista Home Entertainment’s George of the Jungle 2, the sequel to 1997’s George of the Jungle that starred the ever-surprising Brendan Fraser. When Fraser sensibly declined to again take up the, er, vines on which the character swings, the producers at BVHE/Disney decided to find an unknown and let him, ah, ape the manner in which Fraser had built his jungly character. When the chance to audition arrived, we worked hard to get Christopher into the emotional and physical space that would get him the job: a fine mixture of innocence and goofiness, which contrasted nicely with his extraordinary physique and face.

To play George for the film, which was shot in Australia, he studied primates’ societal organizations and body language, especially the way they use their hands, walking on knuckles instead of their palms, for instance. “I did communicate with the on-site primates, especially one chimpanzee, Mr. Muggins, but it took a really long time for me to get close to him. I was able to win his trust and respect. He then showed his trust by turning his back on me. He never bit me.”

We continue to work as coach/actor at least once a week. And he is fine-tuning all the emotional and intellectual strings actors need to pluck during the building and execution of a full-blooded characterization. It is the methods I utilize to earn his trust—never lie and always be “hard without being harsh”—that has kept us together as a team. In addition to teaching the acting basics, I, as an older man, an actor as well as writer, have tried to help him understand the vagaries of the world: how difficult life can be and how to face up to the special problems that come with being an actor, both in one’s professional and personal life.

But there was another side to Christopher that I had noticed from the beginning—an incredible urgency to give back to the world and richness of character, as well as being an all-around nice guy. I saw this in action when he introduced me to his good friend, Dalee Henderson, fifty-one, originally from Tifton, Georgia, and now residing in Los Angeles.

Dalee Henderson is a gay, African-American man who has lived for the past twenty years with HIV/AIDS. But our hero didn’t see race, or age, or even a “socially unacceptable” disease; he saw only a deeply spiritual man who needed help. And so he gave it, and continues to give it—by driving Dalee to doctors’ appointments, helping to keep him socially active by taking him out to dinner or treating him to a movie.

Henderson is attractive, quite independent, and generally healthy, although at the time of this interview he was in bed because of a severe cough, a condition he insisted was temporary. About Showerman, Henderson is adamantly clear: “Chris is one of the most godlike beings I have ever met. I mean that. He is the most consistently conscience-filled man I’ve ever met. When I found out that he did massage therapy, I booked an appointment [and] I wept on the table because of his touch—so pure of spirit; so welcoming as a human being; so healing. I told him then that he was a shaman, a healer.” Dalee believes that Christopher came into his life with pure, unadulterated, and genderless, love. “When I look into his eyes, I see the future of man; I hope that this is what mankind evolves into. He is one of the most honorable human beings I know. Chris is the face of the new man in this world.”

Knowing Dalee further motivated Showerman to get directly involved with the fight against HIV/AIDS. And when the various AIDS organizations began to ask him, as a brand-new celebrity, to show up and participate in their fundraisers, my friend and student jumped at the opportunity. So far, he’s participated in several events for The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (PAF), including its Summer ’03 Dodgeball Competition in which, ironically, he played on the same team as Brendan Fraser. Other events he has volunteered for include PAF’s Karaoke Night last fall, and he participated in its triathlon race in September. In addition, the annual kickoff celebration committee of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Community Center’s AIDS bicycle ride asked him to participate as a volunteer. And because of his extraordinary singing voice, he performed at The Actors’ Fund’s annual AIDS event, as well as this spring’s S.T.A.G.E. event, an annual success story.

So when did Showerman first become aware of HIV/AIDS? “AIDS really hit home for me when Magic Johnson came out on TV. The coverage reminded me that sex could be a death sentence and, being in high school, it made me shyer with women. With Magic, HIV was no longer ‘gay’ because he was our [straight] hometown hero [Magic hails from Lansing, Michigan, near where Christopher was raised]. None of us were comfortable talking about sex then, although at college it was a lot more open: We were more aware of safe sex and there was actually a condom store across the street from the dorm.”

HIV didn’t factor into his life on a personal level until he moved to L.A. to become an actor. “A lot of the people I met out here were openly gay, and I slowly became aware of close friends who were positive. At first, it was frightening to me; I hadn’t had any personal experience with someone who was HIV-positive. I’d be overly careful with them…but I was afraid, through my ignorance, of becoming infected by just being around them.”

It was when he met and began working with Dalee Henderson as his massage therapist that he started to have a significant connection with someone living with HIV/AIDS. “I had to adjust to the fact that I was physically touching him and so I educated myself by reading as well as asking Dalee candid questions about how it was transmitted. Dalee made it so easy to ask these kinds of personal questions about whether what we did was dangerous. He didn’t take offense, which made it safer for me to continue to ask him pertinent questions.” And the friendship grew.

Dalee has become Christopher’s spiritual support. “He’ll call up and leave a message on my machine to bolster my spirits, telling me how great I am. He’s got a sagacity about him that always brings me peace,” Christopher says. “I’m grateful that by the time I became really aware of the disease, the technology and medical knowledge had advanced enough to allow PLWAs to live longer.”

Christopher continues to help those around him, while now beginning to respect his own needs as an actor and as a man. In addition to his involvement with the fight against HIV/AIDS, Showerman also trains power lifters for the Special Olympics. “I look forward to working with these kids each week because they bring so much energy, enthusiasm, and, well, life to the process. They’re funny; they crack jokes; they’re very loving. They make me feel that I’m not wasting my time—that I have a purpose. When I get a chance to work with people that I can share something with, it connects me to the value of my life and the value of my experiences, and reminds me to be grateful for my abilities and faculties.”

See? All this and his ability to act. Can you blame me for tooting his horn?

Dale Reynolds is formerly West Coast Editor of A&U. He is currently a freelance writer on entertainment themes, and can usually be spotted at www.zap2it.com.

January 2004