Good Morning POU!
This week we’ll take a look at those African-americans that have become experts in various forms of martial arts. From Tae Kwon Do to Chin Wung, these men and women have perfected the artistry and skills of martial arts.
We begin the week with one of the most revered black belts of Karate there is, the late great Jim Kelly.
Kelly was born in Millersburg, Kentucky. He attended the University of Louisville where he played football, but left during his freshman year to begin studying Shorin-ryu karate. Kelly began his martial arts career under the tutelage of Shaolin-Do Grandmaster Sin Kwan The in Lexington, Kentucky. Additionally, he trained in Okinawan karate under the direction of Masters Parker Shelton, Nate Patton, and Gordon Doversola. During the early 1970s, Jim Kelly became one of the most decorated world karate champions in the sport. In 1971, Kelly won four prestigious championships that same year, most notably, the World Middleweight Karate title at the 1971 Long Beach International Karate Championships. He opened his own dojo (school) which was frequented by numerous Hollywood celebrities. He taught karate to actor Calvin Lockhart for a role in a thriller feature film Melinda; he ended up playing a martial arts instructor in the movie. Later, he became an accomplished professional tennis player on the USTA Senior Men’s Circuit.
As an actor, Kelly became the first Black martial arts film star. Jim Kelly co-starred alongside Bruce Lee in the block buster, Enter the Dragon. The role was originally supposed to go to actor Rockne Tarkington, who unexpectedly dropped out days before shooting in Hong Kong. Producer Fred Weintraub had heard about Jim Kelly’s karate studio in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles, and went there to see him and was immediately impressed. Kelly’s role as Williams, an inner-city karate instructor who is harassed by white police officers, made a good impression upon directors and African-American males with his cool-cat demeanor and formidable physical skills.
In a genre dominated by Asian faces and settings, Mr. Kelly’s roles often emphasized what was most obviously distinctive about him: he was a handsome and chiseled black man who knew karate at a time when most prominent black fighters were boxers. He wore his hair in a meticulous mushroom Afro, flashed more curls on his taut chest and dispensed stilted bravado in between blows.
In “Enter the Dragon,” when the evil Mr. Han warns him that he will eventually be defeated in a fight, Mr. Kelly’s character, known as Mr. Williams, flashes a smile and responds that defeat will not faze him because he will “be too busy looking good.”
He earned a three-film contract with Warner Brothers and made Three the Hard Way with Jim Brown and Fred Williamson, and Hot Potato, a movie in which he rescues a diplomat’s daughter from the jungles of Thailand. He also starred in the films Black Samurai, Death Dimension, and Tattoo Connection.
Jim Kelly died of cancer on June 29, 2013.
“Gonna set ME up??”