Biographies: Jean-Claude Van Damme - Actor

Biographies

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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. After 4 years of training, Van Damme joined the Belgium Karate Team. At the age of 16 Jean-Claude started his amateur fight career as a 135-pound lightweight. In 1979, Jean-Claude was a member of the Belgium Karate Team when it traveled to Tampa, Florida to compete in the WAKO World Championships promoted by Mike Anderson. In his first and only match against a United States opponent, Van Damme faced 'Sherman 'Big Train 'Bergman', a kick-boxer from the Miami Beach, Florida in a non-tournament match which was fought under full-contact rules. Van Damme's victory over European and British Semi-Contact Middleweight Champion Micheal Heming by "forfeit" due to injury in the second round enabled the Belgium team to win the European Team Championships. The vast majority of his career was fought in both semi and light-contact tournaments. However, he had at least 3-matches fought under kick-boxing rules. 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.

17 October 2011
ann osman