JOIN USJean-Claude Van Varenburg was a chubby fearful Belgian child who, through sheer force of will, transformed himself from a bully-magnet into a karate champion with 18 knockouts to his name. In 1981, Van Varenburg retired from competitive martial arts at the age of 20 and set his sights on Hollywood stardom.
It didn’t matter that he had little more than a rudimentary grasp of English, limited funds and few contacts in the film industry; that same force of will propelled the newly-christened Jean Claude Van Damme to Los Angeles, where his persistence and willingness to show off his trademark roundhouse kick, won him bit parts in several B-movies. After an abortive few weeks sweating inside the alien costume on the Arnold Schwarzenneger movie, Predator, Van Damme got his big Hollywood break.
In 1986, he spotted Menahem Golan, one half of the Israeli producing team behind the notoriously cheap and scrappy exploitation studio Cannon Films, eating breakfast at a Beverly Hills restaurant. Van Damme kicked his leg over Golan’s head and then did the mid-air splits. Golan recognised a fellow hustler. He also saw, in Van Damme’s combination of personal trainer good looks and physical prowess, a perfect addition to Cannon’s roster of action performers which included the grizzled likes of Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson.
That same year Golan paid Van Damme $25,000 to appear in Bloodsport, the true-ish story of Frank Dux, an American martial artiste. Bloodsport gathered dust on Cannon’s shelf for two years until its belated release in 1988 when it became one of the little studio’s biggest hits.
The blueprint for much of Van Damme’s subsequent filmography was established in this movie: he played an underdog, out of his element; he was outmatched and intimidated by a bigger, more brutal opponent; he humbled himself and submitted to a gruelling training schedule until he was mentally and physically ready to face his ultimate battle where he would be beaten to an inch of his life before rallying at the last minute and unleashing either his roundhouse kick or his mid-air splits, which brought him victory and the crowd of onlookers to their feet.
A lucky start
Cannon happily took advantage of the fleet fists and feet of their newest box-office attraction, putting him to work in Black Eagle, Cyborg, Lionheart, Death Warrant and other titles beloved by habitués of 1980s video stores. One movie from this era, 1989’s Kickboxer, is widely regarded as Van Damme’s greatest hit.
By 1991, Van Damme wanted more. “When I came to this country, they signed me for independent, low-budget movies with small companies like Cannon. Dumb stories. The brother dies, I come for revenge, win, people love it, it makes lots of money. These are movies made for a million dollars. But now I have to come out of that cocoon. I really believe I can act. I have to search for good stories, good directors who can really put a plot together.”
Van Damme’s dissatisfaction and his ambition were understandable. He had risen to prominence during a boom time for international action icons. Schwar-zennger had the Terminator franchise. Stallone had Rocky and Rambo. Bruce Willis had Die Hard. Studios were frantically snapping up a new generation of potential action heroes: from sports stars like Brian Bosworth and Howie Long to Brandon Lee and martial arts hopefuls Mark Dascascos and Jeff Wincott. Why shouldn’t Van Damme graduate to the rarified upper echelon? He had signature moves few were capable of emulating. He did not look completely ridiculous playing love scenes with female co-stars. His command of English was no worse than Schwarzenneger’s.
But somehow that transformative hit, that potential franchise that brought out an audience wider than his faithful constituency, never quite happened. He was paired with a co-star of equal clout, he starred in Hard Target, the first disappointing American studio project from Hong Kong action royalty, John Woo. He showed his range playing twin kickboxers in Double Impact. He had his own potential Terminator in 1994’s Timecop and the same year, pulled down his biggest ever payday, eight million dollars, for the video game adaptation Street Fighter. Van Damme’s celebrity was sufficient to see him show up on the post-Superbowl episode of Friends in 1996.
The movies Van Damme made in the 90s are probably someone’s favourites. Sudden Death might have its fans. Double Team, the first disappointing American studio project from Hong Kong action royalty, Tsui Hark and Maximum Risk, the actually not-bad American studio debut from Hong Kong action royalty Ringo Lam, might be on someone’s Top Ten list. But none of them did what Van Damme desperately wanted them to do. They failed to broaden his appeal. They failed to attract the A-list directors and the universally-appealing stories he saw as his due.
Downward spiral
Van Damme, who had four failed marriages and a 10-gram-a-day cocaine habit behind him by his mid-30s, had no backup plans. He began drifting listlessly through indistinguishable international actioners with increasingly reduced budgets made by companies that could only aspire to the grandeur of Cannon Films.
Reduced circumstances, limited name recognition and endless personal setbacks proved the perfect motivation for Van Damme’s wholly unexpected performance in 2008’s JCVD. He finally got the director and story he had been searching for and it was a project that took an unflinching look at his tumble from grace. Nothing Van Damme had previously done indicated that he possessed the self-awareness or vulnerability to place himself under such a pitiless spotlight.
After making a rare big screen appearance as Vilain, the bad guy in the second of Stallone’s “retirement home for ageing tough guys” Expendables, Van Damme this year goes full circle with the upcoming remake of Kickboxer.
Over the decades, Van Damme has been a champion, a nobody, a contender and a punchline. His career may not have taken him where he thought he wanted it to go, but he knows who he is. “I’m not a movie star. I’m a brand name. I go on vacation and everywhere I go, people love me for my name, not for my movies.”