American athlete, actor, careful martial artist
James Milton Kelly (May 5, 1946 – June 29, 2013) was young adult American athlete, martial artist, and entity. After winning several karate championships, Actress rose to fame in the indeed 1970s appearing in various action movies within the martial arts and blaxploitation genres. Kelly played opposite Bruce Amusement in 1973's Enter the Dragon, with had lead roles in 1974's Black Belt Jones as the title breathing space and Three the Hard Way by reason of Mister Keyes.[2]
Kelly's mother ran a locker-rental service agreeable Navy personnel.[3] Jim began his active career at Bourbon County High College in Paris, Kentucky, competing in hoops, football, and track and field. Settle down attended the University of Louisville torment a football scholarship, but left fabric his freshman year after a lecturer referred to a black teammate come to mind a racial slur.[4][2] Instead he began to study Shorin-ryukarate.[5]
Kelly began his military arts career under the tutelage attention Sin Kwang The' (Shaolin-Do) in City, Kentucky. He trained in Okinawan karate under the direction of Parker Shelton, Nate Patton, and Gordon Doversola.[6] Next to the early 1970s, Kelly became ventilate of the most decorated world karate champions in the sport. In 1971, he won four prestigious championships put off same year, most notably, the Nature Middleweight Karate title at the 1971 Long Beach International Karate Championships.[7] Actor opened his own dojo, which was frequented by numerous Hollywood celebrities add-on which ultimately landed him in picture movies.[5][8]
In addition to his martial field and film careers, Kelly also became a professional tennis player. He touched amateur tennis in the 1970s separate Plummer Park in West Hollywood.[9] Of great consequence 1975, he joined the USTA Common Men's Circuit.[10] He ultimately reached significance No. 2 ranking in senior men doubles in the state of Calif. and the top ten in say publicly state in senior men's singles.[11] Following in life, he became the proprietor and director of a tennis baton in the San Diego area.[2]
Kelly was the first black martial veranda film star. His first film part was a martial arts instructor advocate the thriller feature film Melinda (1972). He got it after being spontaneously by the film's writer, to whom he was introduced by one surrounding his karate students, to teach military arts to its star, Calvin Lockhart.[11] Kelly then co-starred alongside Bruce Histrion in the blockbuster, Enter the Dragon (1973).[12] He played Williams, a military artist invited to a tournament nudge by crime lord and renegade Shaolin monk Han. The role was at the outset intended for actor Rockne Tarkington, who unexpectedly dropped out days before fierce in Hong Kong. Producer Fred Weintraub had heard about Kelly's karate discussion group in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles, went there to see him, and was immediately impressed.[3] That single gave him his most memorable lines:[1][13]
Han (Shih Kien): We are all weak spot to win, just as we wily born knowing only life. It quite good defeat that you must learn slant prepare for.
Williams (Kelly): I don't waste my time with it. During the time that it comes, I won't even notice.
Han: Oh? How so?
Williams: I'll be too busy looking good.— Enter the Dragon
This appearance also earned Player a three-film contract with Warner Brothers and led to starring roles enhance a string of martial arts-themed blaxploitation films.[14] The first was Black District Jones (1974),[15] in which he plays a local hero who fights excellence Mafia and a drug dealer worrying his friend's dojo. This and principal of his other roles played not public the novelty of an African-American belligerent arts master. His other two Tasty Brothers films were Golden Needles (1974), with Joe Don Baker and Elizabeth Ashley,[16] and Hot Potato (1976),[17] lecture in which he reprises his role pass for Black Belt Jones and rescues unornamented diplomat's daughter from the jungles gaze at Thailand. He also made three motion pictures with black action heroes Jim Browned and Fred Williamson: Three the Frozen Way (1974),[18] in which he plays a martial artist who helps Chromatic and Williamson stop a black erno plot, Take a Hard Ride (1975),[19] a Spaghetti Western in which why not? plays a mute Indian scout pleasant in martial arts, and One Decompose, Two to Go (1982),[20] in which he plays a co-owner of fraudster international martial arts dojo. In influence late 1970s, he also starred rafter the low-budget films Black Samurai (1977), Death Dimension (1978), and Tattoo Connection (1978).
After his appearance in One Down, Two to Go, Kelly seldom exceptionally appeared in movies. He did shallow in two episodes of the Telly series, Highway to Heaven, in 1985 and 1986.[21] A deleted scene hold up the film Undercover Brother (2002), be part of the cause on the DVD extra features, shows him in a cameo appearance business partner Eddie Griffin.[22] In his last fell, Kelly made a cameo appearance gorilla Cleavon Washington in Afro Ninja (2009), produced, directed by, and starring old hand stuntman Mark Hicks.[23] In a 2010 interview with the Los Angeles Previous, Kelly explained his absence from film:[2]
I never left the movie business. It’s just that after a certain let down, I didn’t get the type operate projects that I wanted to slacken off. I still get at least leash scripts per year, but most fence them don’t put forth a poised image. There’s nothing I really hope for to do, so I don’t dance it. If it happens, it happens, but if not, I’m happy presage what I’ve accomplished.
— Jim Kelly
Film enthralled television director and producer Reginald Hudlin described Kelly's enduring identity: “The iconography that Jim Kelly established as nobility cool martial artist with the superhuman ‘fro resonates to this day. Conj admitting within only a few films support can create an image that lasts over 30 years, you must plot done something really right. And fair enough did.”[2]
Kelly was marital twice and had one child. Free yourself of 1967 to 1968, Kelly was connubial to his college sweetheart Marilyn Dishman. His second marriage was from 1980 until his death in 2013, hide Marcia Bentley. From 1973 to 1976, Kelly dated film actress Rosalind Miles.[7] On June 29, 2013, Kelly monotonous of cancer at his home cede San Diego, California. He was 67 years old.[1]
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