Budo international Martial Arts Magazine Jul.-Aug. 2014 | Page 109

The Other Van Damme
The Jean-Claude Van
Damme Nobody
Knows!
I met him for the first
time in the London offices
of the late lamented
Cannon Films, where a
screening of Bloodsport had
been arranged. I walked into
the office and sitting in reception
was a very charismatic young
fellow who I immediately
recognized having already seen
him in action in Seasonal Films No
Retreat No Surrender, which saw
him playing the superkicking
syndicate's Soviet mean machine. I
was told by the secretary to wait for the
screening, and took the time to
introduce myself to the young JeanClaude who seemed somewhat
amazed that I actually knew who he
was and had seen him in action. (No
Retreat No Surrender was a huge VHS
hit in the UK in the late 80's; we caught
onto this fellow in Europe long before
America did!)
We seemed to hit it off from the start,
and he started to tell me about the
various ups and downs and how the
production of Bloodsport hadn't been
easy and how its release had nearly
been cancelled until he went into the
editing room himself to work on
recutting the fight scenes and
recapture the magic and excitement
that was there. The screening went
well and we grabbed a coffee nearby
and conducted a quick candid
interview with promises to keep in
touch. Now you often hear that in the
industry but it's rare to find someone
who is a man of his word, but
some time later when JeanClaude was back in the UK for
the debut of Kickboxer, he
recognized me the minute I
walked in to do an interview with
him and since then I have
probably interviewed him at least
once a year, and gotten to know
him very well over the years,
worked with him behind the scenes

“JC without
missing a beat picked
up his cell phone and
asked the guy for his
fathers number and
handed the man
his cell phone”