Paul William Walker IV (born September 12, 1973) is an American actor.
Walker was born in Glendale, California and raised in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles County. The son of Paul Walker III (a sewer contractor) and Cheryl a former fashion model, he is the second oldest of his four siblings - two brothers and two sisters. Walker is of Irish and German ancestry and was raised a Mormon, graduating from Village Christian School. After high school, he attended several community colleges, seeking a degree, and a career, in marine biology.
Walker's small-screen career began as a toddler, when he starred in a television commercial for Pampers. He began modeling at the age of 2 and began working on television shows in 1985, possessing roles in shows such as Highway to Heaven, Who's the Boss?, The Young and the Restless and Touched By an Angel.
Walker's film career began in 1987, with the horror-comedy film Monster in the Closet. He continued with roles in several other movies without much success. It wasn't until 1998 that Walker made his feature film debut in the comedy Meet the Deedles, which finally gained him fame. In 2001, Walker's breakthrough role arrived when he starred opposite actor Vin Diesel in the successful action film The Fast and the Furious. During the filming of Running Scared, director Wayne Kramer stated that, "[Walker] is that guy on some level but he’s not really" when comparing Walker with his character in the movie, Joey Gazelle. Kramer continued on to say that he "loved working with [Walker] because as a director he’s completely supportive of my vision of what the film is. And even better, he’s completely game for it."
Walker, an avid surfer, currently resides in Santa Barbara, California with his Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Boone. His daughter, Meadow Rain (born some time in 1999), lives in Hawaii with her mother, a former girlfriend of Walker's. He studies the martial arts forms of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai kickboxing, combining them into his exercise routines, which also include outdoor sports.