In the 1980s and 1990s, the charismatic and photogenic "Muscles from Brussels" became
an international movie star — and then, just as fast and unlikely as his rise, came
the fall.
Here's how the man born Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg has occupied himself
in recent years.
Two of the biggest hits of Van Damme’s early career were Universal Soldier, a 1992 sci-fi
action thriller where he played a deceased veteran resurrected as a technologically enhanced
super-soldier, and 1989’s Kickboxer, where he played… a kickboxer.
Both films wound up spawning full-on franchises, and while Van Damme himself wasn’t always
involved, he did eventually return to the roles that made him famous.
In 1999, Van Damme reunited with Dolph Lundgren, along with Michael Jai White and pro wrestler
Bill Goldberg, for the appropriately named Universal Soldier: The Return.
A decade later, he returned again for 2009’s Universal Soldier: Regeneration and while
that movie ignored the previous film entirely, it led to Lundgren and Van Damme closing out
the franchise with Day of Reckoning in 2012.
As for Kickboxer, that franchise became a straight-to-video juggernaut with five installments
by 1995.
Unfortunately for Van Damme fans (or Fan Dammes), those movies opted to replace him with leading
men like Step By Step’s Sasha Mitchell and future Iron Chef America star Mark Dacoscas.
After 20 years, however, the franchise returned for 2016’s Kickboxer: Vengeance, and Van
Damme reappeared in the series, and even fought Drax the Destroyer! and it seems to have
been a good enough time that he returned for the seventh installment, Kickboxer: Retaliation.
In that one, JCVD fights Mike Tyson.
No, really.
“You mention Mongo one more time and I’ll smash your face.
“...really?”
Those weren’t his only brushes with franchises, though.
In 2010, he was personally offered a role in The Expendables by Sylvester Stallone,
but turned it down.
According to an interview with Van Damme, it was because of commitments to another movie,
but Stallone claimed it was because he objected to a scene where his character would lose
a fight against Jet Li.
Fortunately, there weren’t any hard feelings, and Stallone found a place for Van Damme in
The Expendables 2.
Unless you count the usual blood and bruises that result from on-screen fistfights, Van
Damme has rarely appeared onscreen with his face obscured by makeup.
There was, however, a time that he almost took on one of the most costume-heavy roles
in Hollywood when he was cast as the title monster in The Predator.
Unfortunately for the famously athletic actor, the heavy suit restricted his movement to
the point of making a thrilling martial arts battle against Arnold Schwarzenegger impossible.
At the time of his departure, the Predator looked very different from its final version,
and Van Damme would later explain that while he was in the “very dangerous type of outfit,”
he was “moving everything with cables.”
It was far too limited to make any good use of his skills, so he walked after only two
days of production, leaving Arnold to duke it out with a redesigned alien who did significantly
less kickboxing than called for in the original draft.
Van Damme is famously nicknamed "The Muscles from Brussels," as he was indeed a ripped
guy born in the capital city of Belgium.
In 2012, Brussels paid tribute to one of its favorite sons with a life-sized bronze statue,
forever posed in a fight-ready stance in front of the Westland Shopping Center.
A visibly touched Van Damme unveiled the statue himself at a special ceremony, saying the
monument ...
"represented the dream of a Brussels kid"
… and hoping it could serve as a source of inspiration for troubled youth.
If you’ve seen Hard Target, you already know JCVD hates snakes.
Dogs, though?
The dude loves dogs.
In 2016, Van Damme appeared at a fundraiser for Animals Australia, encouraging people
to adopt retired racing dogs after greyhound racing was banned in New South Wales.
He's even worked on behalf of endangered species, meeting with Australia's Environment Minister
to help procure funding for relocating endangered rhinos, gorillas, and elephants to Australia.
On top of those efforts, he’s trying to put together a foundation of wealthy individuals
to create sanctuaries for those animals.
Believe it or not, Van Damme didn’t hit the peak of his popularity with movies like
Bloodsport.
Instead, the most notable recent moment in his career came in the form of a commercial
for Volvo that went viral thanks to Van Damme’s signature move.
One of the most iconic images of JCVD’s career came in Timecop, when he leapt on a
counter while doing the splits to avoid an untimely demise.
He did the same thing in the ad except this time, the 53 year-old performer did them while
balanced atop two giant trucks…driving backward.
More than 86 million people have watched that amazing clip which is more than the number
of people who ever bought tickets to any single film in his considerable career.
Jean-Claude's daughter Bianca Van Damme is certainly not someone you would want to mess
with she’s been studying martial arts for over 20 years, and once said she wanted to
be a role model for kids by showing them they can “kick ass in a nice, feminine way."
Growing up, she hated martial arts, and was forced into it at the age of seven by her
mother, bodybuilder Gladys Portugues, in order to help with self-discipline.
Her interests at the time lay more on the side of speed-skating and ballet one of her
father’s passions as well but an injury forced her into another path.
She embraced martial arts and worked alongside her father in several movies.
In 1992, the producers of Universal Soldier approached the Midway company with the hopes
of making a game based on the movie.
Midway wasn’t interested, but they did want to work with the film’s star, Jean-Claude
Van Damme, and worked out a deal with him to make a game that would be something more
along the lines of Kickboxer or Bloodsport.
Unfortunately, the deal fell through, and they never finished working on that project.
Instead, that idea eventually lead to Mortal Kombat complete with a character based on
Van Damme in the form of Johnny Cage.
Along with sharing a few of their initials, Cage was also a martial arts movie star.
Obviously, the licensing deal fell through and the character was modeled off another
actor, leaving Johnny Cage more of an homage to the Muscles from Brussels than a direct
representation.
Still, knowing what could’ve been makes us wish that we had gotten a bloody, ultra-violent
game about the genuine article… or at least seen Van Damme playing Cage in the Mortal
Kombat movie.
He probably would’ve been a better fit for that role than the fighting game character
he did take on for the screen, the mega-patriotic Colonel Guile in Street Fighter.
Van Damme has faced plenty of villains onscreen, but his toughest battle in real life was against
addiction.
He has admitted to having a 10-gram-per-day habit, which cost him around $10,000 a week.
By 1999, he had racked up a DUI charge, and while he tried rehab, he left after only seven
days.
A few years later, he relapsed, and found himself in a pretty dark period of his career.
From 1999 to 2008, Van Damme starred in 14 films, and even his most die-hard fans would
have trouble remembering most of them.
The string of generic direct-to-video action flicks and Turkish heist movies earned him
the nickname “Jean-Claude Van Desperate,” but they also paved the way for 2008’s JCVD.
That movie, in which he played a version of himself who was caught up in a hostage crisis
and confronted the emotional and somewhat depressing aspects of his life as a has-been
action star was well received.
Along with kicking his cocaine habit, it helped to bring him back to mainstream Hollywood.
Van Damme’s substance abuse problem has been linked with his bipolar disorder.
His condition went undiagnosed for years before finally being identified as Rapid Cycling
Bipolar Disorder, which is often seen in people who struggle with addiction.
Before being medicated, he would try to literally fight through the dark times by focusing on
training, saying that when he didn’t hit the gym, quote, "nothing could make [him]
happy."
The drugs were another attempt at happiness, but obviously was not the solution to his
problems.
Eventually, his extensive cocaine use even left him feeling suicidal.
The good news is that he was able to battle through his intense depression, and has since
been very open about his disorder, both in interviews and in some gut-wrenching scenes
in JCVD.
Over the past few years, he’s been able to move forward, and deal with his condition
in a far less self-destructive fashion.
While he rose to meteoric fame in Hollywood with a starring role in Bloodsport, Van Damme
didn’t just get off the bus and walk right onto a movie set.
Long before he broke into the film industry, he was an active fighter, with a record of
18 wins and one loss in kickboxing winning every single contest by knockout.
In semi- and light-contact battles, his record stands at 44 and 4, so his skills in the ring
are pretty well known.
Many have attributed his flowing fighting style and graceful movement to his years of
training in a different physical activity: ballet, which he studied for five years while
also earning his black belt in karate.
That said, at least one person thinks that Van Damme should’ve stuck to the dance floor,
and while that’s an easy opinion to dismiss, this one comes from someone who really ought
to know: Frank Dux.
If that name sounds familiar, it should.
Dux was the guy Van Damme played in Bloodsport, whose alleged real-life battles in the kumite
were dramatized for the film.
Dukes even worked as a fight choreographer on the movie, and according to him, Van Damme
quite simply can’t fight.
In 1997, the Las Vegas sun reported that Dux was suing Van Damme for $50,000, which was
later upped to 1.5 million, claiming that the star never paid him for his work as a
co-writer on the 1996 film The Quest.
During the suit, he took a dig at Van Damme’s fighting abilities, claiming that when he
was training him for Bloodsport, Van Damme proved to be unable to perform even simple
stunts.
Oh, and as for his legitimate kickboxing career with all those knockouts?
According to Dux, "Van Damme … lied to the public that he was a martial arts champion.”
Unfortunately for Dux, a jury cleared Van Damme, saying that the star didn’t owe anyone
anything.