About Jean-Claude Van Damme
Jean-Claude Van Damme is a Belgian actor, martial artist, and conservationist. Born and raised in Brussels, his father enrolled him in martial arts classes at the age of ten, which led Van Damme to compete in several karate and kickboxing competitions. With the desire of becoming an actor, he moved to the United States in 1982, where he did odd jobs and worked on several films, until he got his break as the lead in the martial arts film Bloodsport (1988).
In 1982, Van Damme and childhood friend Michel Qissi moved to the United States in the hope of working as actors. They did a variety of jobs to support themselves. Their first job working on a film as extras in the hip hop dance film Breakin’ (1984), made by Cannon Films; they are seen dancing in the background at a dance demonstration.
Around that time he developed a friendship with action martial art film star Chuck Norris. They started sparring together, and Van Damme started to work as a bouncer at a bar named Woody’s Wharf, owned by Norris. Van Damme also supplemented his income as a limousine driver and private karate instructor.
Van Damme’s breakout film was Bloodsport, which opened on 26 February 1988, based on the alleged true story of Frank Dux. It was shot on a $1.5-million budget for Cannon. The film is about U.S. Army Captain Frank Dux (played by Van Damme), trained from his youth in the ways of ninjutsu by Senzo Tanaka, who honors his mentor by taking the place of Tanaka’s deceased son Shingo in the illegal martial-arts tournament Kumite in Hong Kong. It became a U.S. box-office hit in the spring of 1988. Producer Mark Di Salle said he was looking for “a new martial arts star who was a ladies’ man, [but Van Damme] appeals to both men and women.
He’s an American hero who fights for justice the American way and kicks the stuffing out of the bad guys.” In reality, Van Damme had begged for a starring role; at the point of casting, he was homeless, sleeping in cars and garages, and sometimes had to resort to stealing food to survive. Also in 1988, Van Damme played another Russian villain, in Black Eagle, opposite Sho Kosugi. In the film, Sho Kosugi is a martial artist and special operative for the U.S. government codenamed “Black Eagle”, and summoned by his superiors after an F-111 carrying an experimental black ops laser tracking device was shot down over Malta by Russian forces.