His real name is van Warenburg. As a child, he was sick a lot, was weak. At the age of 11, his father gave him karate. After that, his life changed, he became interested only in wrestling.
Biography of Van Damme
At the age of 16, he left school and soon won the title of European champion in karate among teenagers. By the age of 20, he opened his own martial arts club in the center of Brussels, which became very popular and brought him good money. But he dreamed of the glory of a film actor. Fame brought him the main role in the film "Bloodsport". The success of this picture immediately made Van Damme a new action star.
But before he became famous. Jean-Claude Van Damme has worked as a chauffeur, pizza delivery boy, bar bouncer, martial arts trainer, and carpet and rug installer. One day, he accidentally met one of the main producers of the Cannon studio. Jean showed him all his crown blows and after that he finally received an invitation to audition.
Gaining experience and constantly working on himself, Jean-Claude Van Damme starred in the films: Universal Soldier (1992), Hard Target (1993), Nowhere to Run (1993), Time Patrol (1994). Thus, he soon stood on a par with action stars such as Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, and his fee grew to $ 8 million.
In 1997, Van Damme was awarded the title of "Hollywood's Sexiest Legs" by moviegoers. Damm became the owner of the title characteristic of America. Among women, the singer Tina Turner received a similar honor.
Van Damme has three children and five marriages. Very few in Hollywood famous people, in whose life there were no drugs, no alcohol, no depression. After his divorce from his fourth wife, Darcy Lapierre, Jean-Claude began using drugs.
« I became trash, physically and spiritually. But I found the strength to get away from it. Far? Don't know. I would like to believe. I never understood the meaning of the word "surrender".
For the sake of his children, for whom he is an idol, Jean-Claude found the strength to get rid of drug addiction by undergoing treatment in a specialized clinic. But according to Van Damme, it was not treatment that helped to solve the problem to the end, but ... sport.
“You have to love sports, for me the gym is my second home, and training is my whole life. Only daily exhausting sports allowed me to get rid of depression, overcome life difficulties and not lose heart".
And his current wife, the mother of his children, Gladys Portugues Jean-Claude at one time even married twice. She was the one who supported ex-husband V difficult situation in the fight against drugs. They got married in the homeland of the actor, in a small church near Brussels. After that, Van Damme repeatedly stated that Gladys was the only and beloved woman for him.
American actor, screenwriter and film director Jean-Claude Van Damme (real name Jean-Claude Camille Francois Van Varenberg) was born in the municipality of Saint Agatha Berchem (Brussels, Belgium) on October 18, 1960 in the family of a flower seller and an accountant.
Before starting a career in show business, for a long time engaged in martial arts, and before going in for sports for five years classical ballet, which owes its amazing stretch. He has achieved significant success in the sports field. Won the 1979 European Karate Championship in his weight class. Took part in the World Championship. Then he took up kickboxing.
Married for the first time at the age of eighteen, building not his wife's money chic gym. Divorced three years later, after which he moved to permanent place residence in the USA.
Van Damme's film career began in 1983. However, over the years, he has never managed to go beyond projects where his main task is to demonstrate spectacular fighting techniques. Despite the very caustic nickname "Muscles from Brussels" given to him in Hollywood, the films with the participation of the actor at one time gathered hundreds of thousands of spectators in cinemas and were considered standard cool action films. Van Damme has always been distinguished by impeccable foot control and amazing stretching, which he demonstrated from film to film to the delight of the audience.
Fame and recognition for the actor brought the film "Bloodsport" (1988), "AWOL" (1990) and "Double Impact" (1991), in some of which he acted as both the author of the plot and as a producer.
One of the most commercially successful and famous films with the participation of Van Damme, "Universal Soldier" was released on wide screens in 1992. The picture, in which the antihero was no less superbly played, grossed over $ 40 million at the box office. The success of the picture did not go unnoticed, and, being at the peak of his popularity, Van Damme, I begin to invite to much more serious roles in the professional sense. The roles followed one after another: Nowhere to Run (1993), Hard Target (1993), Time Patrol (1994), Street Fighter (1994), Sudden death"(1995)," In search of adventure "(1996). The fees increased from picture to picture, so if in 1992 the maximum fee for a role was 1 million, then by 1996 it was already 5 million.
Fairly successful developing career, was ruined by the actor himself. The popularity of the actor began to fade rapidly against the background of the scandals associated with him. By this time, the actor had been married five times, repeatedly clashed with the police, abused alcohol, and then became addicted to drugs.
None of the pictures with the participation of the actor that have appeared on the screens since then has any commercial or artistic value, all the same hackneyed plots, and the same beating Van Damme quickly bored the viewer. For such an attitude, the viewer was not slow to vote with his wallet - the pictures with the participation of the actor fail at the box office one after another: “Maximum Risk” (1996), “Fuse” (1998), “Universal Soldier 2: The Return” (1999), “Replicant "(2001), "Derailed" (2002), "Glitch" (2004), "Second in Team" (2006), "Exam" (2006), "Special Assignment" (2008) and the like.
Continues to work as an actor. No less active, and no more successful than before.
Jean-Claude Van Damme is a Belgian bodybuilder, actor and stunt performer. Creative biography Van Damme has about fifty roles. The popularity of the Belgian actor brought numerous militants. In addition, Jean-Claude knows five martial arts, and also tried his hand as a screenwriter, director, producer, editor and choreographer of fight scenes in more than a dozen films.
At birth, the name of the future actor was even longer: Jean-Claude-Camille-Francois Van Varenberg. Jean-Claude was born on October 18, 1960 in one of the nineteen communes called Berkem-Saint-Agate, which is part of the Brussels-Capital Region, in the family of an accountant and a housewife. The boy's father was engaged not only in the reduction of debit and credit, but also owned his own flower shop. The mother took care of the house and the upbringing of her only son. Probably in early childhood the mother paid much more attention to the child than the father, since little Jean-Claude grew up as a pampered, frail and whiny boy, although it is now difficult to believe in this.
However, tall for his age and skinny, he wore thick-lens glasses and was stooped despite his activities. classical choreography, and painful. When the boy was ten years old, his father took Jean-Claude to the karate section to instill in the boy a love of sports and show healthy mind rivalry. Jean-Claude fell in love with martial arts right away. Under the guidance of coach Claude Goetz, the guy mastered not only the technical skills of karate, but also psychological preparation, auto-training and tactical features of hand-to-hand combat.
Martial arts
Serious attitude to the case has borne fruit. Jean-Claude sat on the splits, straightened his posture, gained weight: with a height of 177 cm, the weight of the young man was 85 kg. After eight years of study future star sports and cinema, he passed the black belt exam, and two years later he won the European Championship among professionals, knocking out his opponent in the first round. The full statistics of Jean-Claude Van Damme's professional fights is as follows: 22 fights, 20 victories, 13 of which were by knockout, and 2 technical defeats.
Interestingly, Van Damme owns not only karate, but also four other martial arts: the American version of kickboxing, Thai boxing, called Muay Thai, the Chinese martial art of kung fu and Korean martial taekwondo.
Despite the fact that at the age of 19, Jean-Claude opened his own sport Club called "California", in which he himself taught karate, aerobics and bodybuilding, Van Damme irresistibly attracted the world of cinema. Therefore, forgetting about a very promising business that brought the bodybuilder a fairly stable financial position The young man takes risks.
Jean-Claude sells Gym, sneaks into a film festival with a fake subscription, and gains useful contacts from the film world. Then he goes to conquer the United States of America.
Movies
At first, circumstances were against the future actor. Preliminary agreements with the actress turned out to be empty promises, and Van Damme had to literally to break the way to the cinematic Olympus. For four years, the young man unsuccessfully called film studios, offering his candidacy for participation in the filming. At the same time, Van Damme worked as a chauffeur, a fighter in shadow underground rings, and even a bouncer in a club.
The first film debut took place in 1986 in the film "Do not retreat and do not give up", where the actor plays the Russian fighter Ivan Krashinsky. Then, for the first time, the pseudonym Van Damme, which later became famous, sounded. Jean-Claude had to change real name Van Varenberg, as it was difficult for English speakers to pronounce.
But success came to the actor after famous movie"Bloodsport", which allowed the production center to recoup the cost of filming thirty times. Subsequent films such as "Kickboxer", "AWOL", "Double Strike", "Universal Soldier", "Nowhere to Run" only reinforced the popularity of the actor. So much so that Van Damme became the prototype for the character. computer game « Mortal Kombat”, and the boys all over the world ran to enroll in the karate section. Despite this, the most popular moment from the galaxy of militants was a fragment of the film "Kickboxer", in which Jean-Claude does not fight, but dances.
It is curious that since the actor could not completely get rid of the French accent, Van Damme's characters often have just french names and roots - Luc Devereaux, Chris Dubois, Chance Boudreau, Lyon Gauthier, Alain Lefevre, Philip Savage, Jean Vilain.
In 1992, 1993 and 1994, Van Damme was nominated for the MTV Movie Awards in the Most Desirable Man category.
In the mid and late nineties, the demand for Jean-Claudde Van Damme declined due to the fall in popularity for action films based on martial arts. Movies such as Legionnaire, Colony and Death Awakening did not bring much success, despite good scripts and improved acting.
triumphant return Van Damme owes the film "J. K. V. D. ”, which was released in 2008. On the wave of new popularity, the actor starred in a whole series of sequels: Universal Soldier 3: Rebirth, Universal Soldier 4, The Expendables 2 and other films.
In 2012, Jean-Claude Van Damme appeared in the Russian film Rzhevsky Against. In the Russian comedy, the Belgian got a small role, almost a cameo. Van Damme played a foreign guest.
Then the actor returned to the usual action movie genre and played the main roles in the films "Six Bullets", "Close Enemies" and "Pound of Flesh". In 2014, Van Damme appeared in the action comedy Welcome to the Jungle.
Personal life
The family relationships of Jean-Claude Van Damme, like many public people, are very scandalous and stormy. The actor entered into official marriages five times, and twice with the same woman.
For the first time, Jean-Claude was combined with the sacrament of marriage at the age of eighteen, and Van Damme's wife was a wealthy girl, Maria Rodriguez, who was older than husband for seven years. The couple divorced when future actor went to conquer America. However, there Jean-Claude did not go single for long and married Cynthia Derderian, the daughter of the owner of a construction company in which Van Damme worked as a driver. The second marriage lasted only a few months and collapsed due to the popularity that soon came to the actor.
At Chuck Norris' party, Van Damme meets champion bodybuilder Gladys Portugues. The athlete becomes the third wife of the actor, the mother of the common son Christopher and daughter Bianca, and also, as will show future life, main woman in the life of a star. But at that time the marriage lasted several years. Gladys left her husband because Jean-Claude had an affair with beauty queen Darcy La Pierre. What's interesting about divorce ex-wife did not demand any financial obligations from Van Damme, which is very unusual for Hollywood families.
The actor married for the fourth time just to Miss La Pierre, who gave Van Damme a son, Nicholas. This time the divorce happened due to the fall of the actor's career and the associated spree, alcohol and drugs.
in the fifth and last time Jean-Claude remarried to the mother of his children, Gladys Portugues, who supported her ex-husband in a difficult situation. The couple got married in the homeland of the actor, in a church near Brussels. After that, Van Damme repeatedly stated that Gladys was the only and beloved woman.
Jean-Claude Van Damme now
In January 2016, the martial arts cartoon Kung Fu Panda 3 was released, in which Van Damme voiced Master Croc.
On September 2, 2016, the premiere of the film "Kickboxer", a reboot of the 1989 action movie of the same name, took place. In the original film, Van Damme played the role of a young fighter Kurt Sloan, and in the remake this role went to Alain Moussi. Jean-Claude Van Damme played the role of Master Durand's mentor Sloan. In 2017, the release of the sequel "Kickboxer 2" is planned. TO cast pictures plans to join the boxer.
Also in 2017, Van Damme's films Black Waters, Finish Them All and The Antwerp Robbery will be released.
The action-drama “Full of Love” remains at the stage of searching for a distributor. main role Jean-Claude performed in the film. The actor also acted as a director, producer, screenwriter and editor. The finished video was screened at Cannes back in 2010 and re-screened at the Shanghai International Film Festival in 2014. Further fate painting has not yet been determined.
Filmography
- 1988 - Bloodsport
- 1989 - "Kickboxer"
- 1990 - "AWOL"
- 1991 - "Double Impact"
- 1992 - "Universal Soldier"
- 1993 - "Nowhere to Run"
- 1994 - "Street Fighter"
- 1998 - "Legionnaire"
- 2004 - "Awakening Death"
- 2008 - "J. K.V.D.”
- 2011 - "Killer Games"
- 2012 - "Rzhevsky against Napoleon"
- 2012 - "Six bullets"
- 2013 - Close Enemies
- 2014 - "Welcome to the Jungle"
- 2015 - "Pound of Flesh"
- 2016 - "Kickboxer" (remake)
