Jean Claude Van Damme is a famous actor from Belgium, whose track record includes more than 50 leading roles. Also known in Hollywood as a director and producer, professional athlete and bodybuilder. The audience especially fell in love with the films “Bloodsport” and “Universal Soldier”, and was awarded the Order of “Golden Talents of the Planet”. The future actor was born in Brussels on October 18, 1960. Real name: Van Varenberg. Parents had nothing to do with cinema. His father worked as an accountant, and his mother sold flowers. After the birth of his son, dad changed his specialization and went into the flower business. As a child, Van grew up as a sickly child. To strengthen their son’s immunity, his parents sent him to a martial arts school at the age of 11, where the future actor began to diligently practice karate and kung fu.
Van didn’t like studying, so in his senior year he completely dropped out of school and took up professional sports. Already in 1978, he received a black belt in karate, and a couple of years later became the European champion in this sport.
However, these titles did not bring profit. Then Van finally gave up sports and bought the California Jim sports club. However, he did not become a businessman either. A year later, the business had to be sold. Then Van decided to conquer Hollywood and set off with his best friend on a long journey. The world of show business did not take a guy without an education very warmly. At first, Jean changed several professions, for example, he worked as a driver, builder and bouncer. However, he regularly attended film auditions. After several episodic roles, the sports guy was offered the main role in the legendary film “Bloodsport.” That's when global success came. About the biography of Emin Agalarov.
Filmography
It was his role as Frank in Bloodsport that made Van a celebrity in 1988. The next film with his participation followed immediately and only cemented the success of the aspiring actor. The film "Kickboxer" was a resounding success with audiences. Since then, his filmography has been replenished with new works every year. For example, in 1989, Jean took part in the filming of the film “Cyborg”, and in 1990 he received the main role in “AWOL”.
Other cult films with his participation are “Universal Soldier”, “The Last Action Hero”, “Hard Target”, “Time Patrol”. However, in the late 90s, Van’s career temporarily went into decline, and he was invited to filming less and less often. There are several reasons: scandalous behavior and fights in society, bad habits and problems in personal life. The premiere of “Universal Soldier” in 1999 saved the actor’s financial situation.
In the new millennium, Jean was not lost. Pictures with his participation in leading roles were regularly released on the screens. Among these are “The Secret of the Order” (2001), “Derailed” (2002), “Las Vegas” (2003), “Waking Death” (2004), “Second in Command” (2006), “Until Death” ( 2007), “Shepherd” (2008), the 3rd part of “Universal Soldier” in 2009.
Martial arts
Taking my training seriously has paid off. Jean-Claude did the splits, straightened his posture, and gained weight: with a height of 177 cm, the young man’s weight was 85 kg. After 8 years of training, the future sports and film star passed the black belt exam, and after another 2 years he won the European Championship among professionals, knocking out his opponent in the 1st round. The complete statistics of Van Damme’s professional fights are as follows: 22 fights, 20 victories, of which 13 were by knockout, as well as 2 technical defeats.
Interestingly, Van Damme not only masters karate, but also four other areas of martial arts: the American version of kickboxing, Thai boxing called Muay Thai, the Chinese martial art of kung fu and Korean combat taekwondo. 5 years of classical ballet training gave him agility and grace, as well as his famous roundhouse kick.
Jean-Claude Van Damme does the splits
Despite the fact that in his early youth Jean-Claude opened his own sports club called “California”, where he taught karate, aerobics and bodybuilding, he was irresistibly attracted to the world of cinema. Therefore, having forgotten about the promising business that brought the bodybuilder a fairly stable financial position, he took a risk.
The young man sold the gym, cunningly entered the film festival using a fake subscription, and gained useful contacts from the world of cinema. After that he set off to conquer the United States of America.
Personal life
Officially, Jean was married 5 times and raised three children. He also had numerous affairs on the side, which the actor did not particularly hide in his family life.
Wife: Maria Rodriguez
The first marriage was of convenience in the distant 80s, when Jean was barely 18 years old. At the expense of his first wife, Van bought a gym, an expensive car and raised money for a trip to Hollywood.
The relationship with Rodriguez, 7 years older than her husband, ended when the actor stopped needing her financial support. There were no children in the marriage, and after the separation, the ex-spouses no longer crossed paths.
Van Damme's wife - Cynthia Derderian
When Jean was still married to Maria Rodriguez, actress Jacqueline Bisset invited the ambitious athlete to move to Hollywood and become an actor. Van quickly got divorced and went for fame.
In Hollywood, he met the daughter of a construction magnate, Cynthia Derderian. The girl immediately solved his financial problems, and in 1985 they officially got married. True, they lived in marriage for only a year, and broke up immediately after the premiere of the film “No Retreat and No Surrender” with his participation. The ex-wife did not have any children.
Wife: Gladys Portugues
The actor's third marriage lasted 6 years. Jean's chosen one this time was a fashion model and American bodybuilding champion. Jean met the athlete Portugues at Chuck Norris's gym.
About the family and parents of Lyubov Aksenova (Novikova).
After a modest wedding in 1987, Gladys gave birth to Van two children and finally left professional sports. But the housewife quickly became bored with the loving actor, so Jean once again initiated the separation.
Gladys also became the celebrity's fifth wife. After his adventures, Jean settled down and returned to his family. The loving woman forgave him, and in 1999 they married again.
Darcy la Pierre
The fourth wife was the winner of a beauty contest. The lovers appeared together everywhere, openly demonstrating the ardor of their feelings. They soon got married, but this marriage also did not last long, only 9 months. Darcy gave birth to her husband's son, Nicholas, but this addition did not save the family.
Alena Kaverina
The actor had an affair with a Ukrainian model in 2010. A certain Kaverina became a new passion, with whom Jean appeared in Kyiv nightclubs and behaved very openly in public. The matter was close to a divorce from Gladys, but the family was saved. Whereas Kaverina remained in the past.
Childhood and youth
At birth, the name of the future actor was even longer: Jean-Claude Camille Francois Van Varenberg. He was born on October 18, 1960 in one of the 19 communes called Berquem-Sainte-Agathe, which is part of the Brussels-Capital Region, in the family of an accountant and a housewife.
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Jean-Claude Van Damme in his youth
The father was not only involved in reconciling debits and credits, but also owned a flower shop. The mother ran the household and raised 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 now it is difficult to believe this.
Tall for his age and thin, the child wore glasses with thick lenses, was stooped, despite studying classical choreography, and sickly. When the boy was 10 years old, his father took Jean-Claude to the karate section to instill in his son a love of sports and show a healthy spirit of competition. The guy fell in love with martial arts immediately. Under the guidance of coach Claude Goetz, the young man mastered not only the technical skills of karate, but also psychological preparation, auto-training and tactical features of hand-to-hand combat.
Van Damme's children
The actor has three adult children. Son Christopher and daughter Bianca Jean were born to his third wife, Gladys, and Nicholas to his fourth wife, Darcy. The father maintains friendly relations with all his children.
Sons: Christopher and Nicholas
The eldest son, Christopher, was born in 1987. His mother is Gladys. Full name: Christopher Van Varenberg. The guy followed in the footsteps of his star parent and also became an actor. You can see him in the first and third parts of “Universal Soldier”.
Darcy Lapierre gave her second son to the Hollywood star. Nicholas is not a media personality; he leads a hidden lifestyle. In 2017, his name was included in the news reports; after a lengthy trial, the guy received a suspended prison sentence.
Daughter – Bianca
The only daughter Bianca is also already an adult and has chosen the path of an actress. The girl starred in a film with the participation of her father. In "Eagle Way" Wang also distinguished himself as a producer and director.
Movies
At first, circumstances were against the future actor. Preliminary agreements with actress Jacqueline Bisset turned out to be empty promises, and Van Damme had to literally fight his way to cinematic Olympus. For 4 years, the young man unsuccessfully called film studios, offering his candidacy for participation in the filming.
As the actor later recalled in an interview, he looked for expensive cars in parking lots in front of film studios and attached photos of himself with his phone to their windows. At the same time, Van Damme worked as a driver, a fighter in shady underground rings, and even as a bouncer at the Chuck Norris club.
His film debut took place in 1986 in the film “No Retreat and No Surrender,” where the actor played the Russian fighter Ivan Krashinsky. Then the pseudonym Van Damme, which later became famous, was first used. Jean-Claude had to change his real name to Van Varenberg because it was difficult for English-speaking people to pronounce.
Jean-Claude Van Damme dances
Success came to the actor after the famous film “Bloodsport”, which allowed the production center to recoup the cost of filming 30 times. Fans of the young performer were especially impressed by his trademark roundhouse kicks - according to legend, it was these that the artist demonstrated right on the street to producer Menahem Golan in order to get the role. Another difference between the “muscles from Brussels,” as the actor was called in the press, was his soft accent - it gave the blue-eyed brunette a special charm.
One of the Belgian’s brightest works of this period was the main role in John Woo’s debut Hollywood film “Hard Target”. The artist personally met with the famous Asian director and persuaded him to start the project. Woo changed almost all the action sequences in the original script.
Subsequent films, such as “Kickboxer”, “AWOL”, “Double Impact”, “Universal Soldier”, “Nowhere to Run”, only reinforced the artist’s popularity. His fees amounted to multimillion-dollar payments, and his name was on a par with the names of the stars who were at the zenith of fame at that time - Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Photo promo d' Universal Soldier Movie Jean-Claude Van Damme Dolph Lundgren
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Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren on the set of the film “Universal Soldier”
The actor’s popularity reached its peak: Van Damme became the prototype for the character in the computer game Mortal Kombat, and guys all over the world ran to sign up for karate classes. Despite this, the most striking moment from the galaxy of action films was a fragment of the film “Kickboxer”, in which Jean-Claude does not fight, but performs a dance.
It is curious that since the actor could not completely get rid of the French accent, Van Damme’s heroes often have French names and roots: Luc Devereaux, Chris Dubois, Chance Boudreau, Lyon Gautier, Alain Lefebvre, Philippe Savage, Jean Vilaine.
In 1992, 1993 and 1994, Van Damme was nominated for the MTV Movie Awards in the Most Desirable Male category.
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Jean-Claude Van Damme now
In the mid and late 90s, Jean-Claude's demand declined due to the decline in popularity of action films based on martial arts. Movies such as “Legionnaire” and “Colony”, where Mickey Rourke played along with the Belgian, did not bring him much success, even taking into account good scripts and the actor’s improved performance.
Despite Van Damme's ability to turn low-budget action films into box office hits, studios' desire to work with the actor was declining. Inspired by fame, the artist demanded huge fees, and his behavior spoiled his career: Jean-Claude fought with the paparazzi, drank and used drugs, and was constantly late for filming. In order not to disrupt the schedule, the producers hired a special person who was supposed to look after the uncontrollable star, but this did not help. All this began to affect the quality of films, which failed at the box office.
Van Damme owes his triumphant return to the film “J. K.V.D.”, released in 2008. The artist’s performance so impressed viewers and critics that Time published the image of the Belgian, recreated on the screen, as the second most successful after Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight. 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.
Ready to ride the jet plane and take my children to the island for our next shooting.
"Welcome to the Jungle!" Posted by Jean-Claude Van Damme on Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Jean-Claude Van Damme and his children
In 2012, the artist appeared in the Russian film “Rzhevsky against Napoleon”. In the Russian comedy, the Belgian got a small role, almost a cameo: Van Damme played a foreign guest. The actor experimented with forms, so a year later he appeared in a Volvo advertising campaign. He was captured in a video performing the "most epic split ever" between two moving trucks.
On September 2, 2016, the premiere of the film “Kickboxer: Retribution”, a reboot of the famous 1989 action film, took place. In the original film, Van Damme played the young fighter Kurt Sloan, and in the remake this role went to Alain Moussi. Jean-Claude played Sloane's mentor, Master Durand. Two years later, the sequel “Kickboxer Returns” was released, in which boxer Mike Tyson joined the cast.
In March 2022, viewers saw the artist in the next action movie “We Die Young.” The film was a box office failure, grossing less than $144,000 in theaters against a budget of $4 million.
Film career
The actor's filmography began in 1979 and includes more than 50 films. His movie characters are, as a rule, athletic, agile, muscular guys. To embody such images, the actor trained hard all his life, keeping in shape.
In the 90s of the twentieth century, Van Damme became one of the most popular actors and won the sympathy of the world audience. Having a beautiful, well-proportioned body with well-developed muscles and an attractive appearance, for three years in a row he was nominated for a film award in the “Most Desirable Man” category. He managed to achieve great success thanks to his ability, no matter what, to patiently and persistently go towards his goal.
Interesting Facts
- In “The Last Mercenary,” the role of the son of the main character played by Van Damme was played by 10-year-old Ukrainian Yasin Farajallah, a participant in the third season of the television show “Kids vs. the Stars.”
- The characters from the cartoons “Minions: Gruvitation”, “Kung Fu Panda 2”, and the TV series “Robot Chicken” speak in the voice of Jean-Claude.
- In 2011, Jean-Claude, along with actress Hilary Swank, violinist Vanessa May and British singer Seal, participated in the City Day celebrations in Grozny (Chechnya), which displeased the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, which called for a boycott of the event.
- In his mansion, Van Damme set up a shelter for stray dogs, of which he has more than a dozen. He still cannot forgive himself that, having left for America, he left his beloved dog Tara to an unfamiliar person, who, without waiting for the owner, died of melancholy.
- In Azerbaijan there is a village called Vandam, the name of which, although translated as “ash roof,” is consonant with the actor’s name. Apparently, that’s why it was decided to erect his lifetime monument there. Another life-size statue of him is in Brussels, near the Westland Shopping Center.
- The actor’s older sister Veronica wrote an autobiographical book about her brother, which is called “My Brother Jean-Claude.”
