JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMME

Born on Oct 18 1960, Jean-Claude Van Damme is the son of Eugene Van Varenberg and Eliana Van Varenberg. "The Muscles from Brussels" originally known as Jean-Claude Van Varenberg, started martial arts at the age of 11. His father Eugene Van Varenberg introduced him to martial arts when he saw his son was physically weak. Jean-Claude started with Shotokan Karate and later studied Kickboxing, Taekwon-Do, and Muay Thai. He won the European professional karate association's middleweight championship as a teenager, and also beat the 2nd best karate fighter in the world. His goal was to be number one but got sidetracked when he left his hometown of Brussels.

He came to Hong Kong at the age of 19 for the first time and felt insured to do action movies in Hong Kong. So in 1981 Van Damme left Hong Kong and moved to Los Angeles, where he was trying for 5 years. He took English classes while working as carpet layer, pizza delivery man, limo driver, and thanks to Chuck Norris he got a job as a bouncer at a club. Norris gave Van Damme a small role in the movie Missing in Action (1984), but it wasn't good enough to get anybody's attention. Then in 1984 he got a role as a villain named Ivan in the low-budget movie No Retreat, No Surrender (1986).

Then one day, while walking on the streets, Jean-Claude spotted a producer for Cannon Pictures, and showed some of his martial arts abilities which led to a role in Bloodsport (1988). But the movie, filmed in Hong Kong, was so bad when it was completed, it was shelved for almost two years. It might have never been released if Van Damme did not help them to recut the film and begged producers to release it. They finally released the film, first in Malaysia and France and then into the U.S. Shot on a meager 1.5 million dollar budget, it became a U.S box-office hit in the spring of 1988. It made about 30 million worldwide and audiences supported this film for its new sensational action star Jean-Claude Van Damme.

His martial arts assets, highlighted by his ability to deliver a kick to an opponent's head during a leaping 360-degree turn, and his good looks led to starring roles in higher budgeted movies like Cyborg (1989), Lionheart (1990), Double Impact (1991) and Universal Soldier (1992). In 1994, he scored with his big breakthrough $100 million worldwide hit Timecop (1994). But in the meantime, his personal life was coming apart. A divorce, followed by a new marriage, followed by another divorce.

It began to show up in his career when his projects began to tank at the box office - The Quest (1996), which he directed; Maximum Risk (1996) and Double Team (1997). The three films made less than $50 million combined.

In 1999 he remarried his ex-wife Gladys Portugues and restarted his lost career to attain new goals. With help from his family he faced his problems and made movies like Replicant (2001), Derailed (2002), and In Hell (2003) which did averagely in box office terms, but he tried to give his fans the best, his acting in those movies got better, more emotional and each movie was basically in different action tones. (via IMDB)


From The Blogsphere

A Trailer for Jean-Claude Van Damme's 'The Eagle Path'

via cinematical.com ( 74 Days ago )
It's time for the second feature written, directed, and starring the Muscles from Brussels Jean-Claude Van Damme. First we had The Quest, a story he whipped up with the help of Frank Dux (the man Bloodsport was based on). Now there's The Eagle Path. Once called Full Love, this sucker is all-out classic Van Damme with faux serious acting, violence, and of course, the potential love [...]

Universal Soldier: Regeneration Movie Trailer

via slashfilm.com ( 78 Days ago )
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has released a trailer for the upcoming Jean-Claude Van Damme / Dolph Lundgren movie Universal Soldier: Regeneration. With stolen top-secret technology, terrorists have created a next-generation Universal Soldier - an elite fighter genetically altered into a programmable killing machine. With this “UniSol” (Former UFC Heavyweight Champion [...]

Review: Ong Bak 2

via cinematical.com ( 139 Days ago )
Cinematically speaking, there may be nothing worse than when an action star or purveyor of thrills starts taking himself too seriously. Such a transformation almost invariably begets a personal crusade, which often takes the form of a vanity project, and usually turns out about as well as The Quest did for Jean-Claude Van Damme, or On Deadly Ground did for Steven Seagal. Thai martial [...]

'Eagle Path' Promo: Van Damme Wishes He Were as Free as a Certain Bird

via iwatchstuff.com ( 203 Days ago )
TwitchFilm has posted a new promotional trailer for Jean-Claude Van Damme's latest, presumably straight-to-dvd action film, The Eagle Path. In the below embedded video you will find: - Eagle imagery - Eagle imagery blatantly, immediately explained. - Van Damme explaining that he'll protect a woman. - Van Damme expressing the emotion pictured above. - Van Damme reiterating he'll [...]

New Promo For Jean Claude Van Damme’s The Eagle Path

via slashfilm.com ( 204 Days ago )
Just one movie can turn a whole career around. For Jean Claude Van Damme, that was JCVD. The movie proved (at long last) that the notoriously self-aggrandizing actor had a sense of humor. Folks that hadn’t paid attention to the guy in a decade were suddenly big fans. Who needs The Expendables when you can rope your own persona into a failed bank robbery and subsequent media [...]

Whatever Happened to Chong Li from Bloodsport?

via uncoached.com ( 217 Days ago )
“You break my record.  Now I break you!”  Remember the humongous Asian dude that appeared in just about every single Jean Claude Van Damme movie in history?  He was the infamous Chong Li in Bloodsport and way before that played “Bolo” in Enter the Dragon.  Well the real man’s name is Bolo Yeung. Amazingly enough the guy just turned 71 this month. [...]

The Best Blood Sport Clip That Never Aired

via uncoached.com ( 218 Days ago )
In one of those classic scenes where the actors are just messing around, here you see Jean Claude Van Damme and Bolo Yeung just going at it with the rock stuff. I always knew there was something special between these guys.

4 Direct-to-DVD Van Damme Films That Will Explode Your Balls

via digg.com ( 229 Days ago )
Jean-Claude Van Damme is arguably our country's greatest President. He has a fight record of 4078-0 with 831 no contests due to Doing the Splits and Punching Balls. He gets a boner on

Jean Claude Van Damme is Going Horror in The Breed?

via firstshowing.net ( 258 Days ago )
Either JCVD really helped get Van Damme back in the biz, or he's desperate to make some money. The horror gurus at Arrow in the Head are reporting that Jean Claude Van Damme is joining a horror project called The Breed. AITH caught up with JCVD in Cannes, where he revealed that after shooting a movie called Weapon in the summer, he'd shoot The Breed next. "It's a great story, great [...]

Disturbia: Van Damme vs. Hilton

via tmz.com ( 264 Days ago )
Filed under: Paparazzi Photo, Paris Hilton, Nurse! Terror alerts in Cannes were raised to vomit in my mouth, when Jean Claude Van Damme emerged on a balcony in a bikini brief and Paris Hilton attempted to suck the life out of that borefriend fella of hers.Although swine flu masks were issued, the ...Permalink

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