Jean Claude Van Damme From 1980 To 2023
He was born on October 18, 1960 in the Belgian municipality of Berkem-Saint-Agat in the Brussels-Capital Region. My father was an accountant and owner of a flower shop[14][15]. His father is half-Flemish, half-Jewish (spoke French) and his mother is Flemish (spoke Flemish Dutch)[16]. Parents sent their son to karate school at the age of ten. From the age of 12, Van Damme continued his studies under the guidance of Claude Goetz. In addition to karate, Van Damme also owns 4 more types of martial arts: kickboxing, muay thai, kung fu and taekwondo[17]. He also studied classical ballet for five years. In his youth, he opened a gym called “California Gym” [18]. Van Damme is 177 cm[19]
In 1978, he took third place in his weight category at the European Amateur Bodybuilding Championship, and a year later, speaking at the Belgian Championship, called “Mr. Belgium”, he won in his and the main weight categories, thus becoming the absolute champion [1] [2][3][4]. He is the European champion in karate and kickboxing in 1979 in the middleweight among professionals[2][5][6][7][8], and also has a black belt[2][3][5].
During his fighting career (karate and kickboxing) he had a total of 55 fights, in which he won 53 victories (50 of them by knockout, 3 by technical knockout) and lost 2 times by decision of the judges. He was also three times world champion[4][6][⇨]
During his acting career, he starred in a total of more than 50 films, including: “Bloodsport” (1988), “Kickboxer” (1989), “AWOL” (1990), “Death Warrant” (1990), ” Double Strike (1991), Universal Soldier (1992) and its sequel Universal Soldier 2: Return (1999), Nowhere to Run (1993), Hard Target (1993), Time Patrol (1994) ), “Street Fighter” (1994), “Sudden Death” (1995), “Legionary” (1998), “Replicant” (2001), “Awakening Death” (2004), “J. K.V.D.” (2008), The Expendables 2 (2012), Close Enemies (2013)[9][10][11][⇨].
In 1996, Van Damme made his directorial debut with the martial arts film In Search of Adventure, in which he also starred and co-wrote the story. Also in 2020, additional filming was completed on Van Damme’s second directorial work, the dramatic action film Frenchie, which he directed and produced from his own script with himself in the title role.
