ACTION MOVIE STARS

The Expendables

Hi everyone, in this post I'd like to talk about action films but in particular about the 5 most famous action movie actors. I'm going to show you 5 men who are not young anymore but still very popular and they have starred in the best action movies of all time. I won't tell you about their biographies because it would be boring, but I'll tell you some things about them which, I think, are very interesting!

• Arnold Schwarzenegger

The first one is Scwarzenegger because he is my favourite, and because when you think about action movies the first actor who comes to your mind it’s him. He is not American, he was born in Austria and he is 69 . He suffered from child abuse and every time someone told to him "You can't do this" he said "This is not going to be for much longer, because I'm going to move out of here. I want to be rich. I want to be somebody." He chose bodybuilding as a career and he became Mr. Universe for 4 years in a row and he also captured the title of Mr. Olympia , which means being the greatest bodybuilder in the world.

He was also the governor of California from 2003 until 2011 and he is known for his work against racism, pollution and global worming, The Time named him one of the most important people socially active to help the world. However, he is known to the majority of the people for his acting career since he has starred in more than thirty movies. I can't list all his successful movies because they are too many but I think the most important is the cycle of "Terminator".

• Sylvester Stallone (Sly)

Stallone is an American actor but his parents are Italian actually, they migrated to the USA in 1930. When he was a child he had many physical problems but sport helped him to overcome these problems. These characterisics have done nothing but make his performances peculiar and his voice unmistakable. Once he said about himself "I'm not attractive in the classical sense. The eyes are downward, the mouth is crooked, teeth are not straight and I have the voice of a mafia pallbearer, but somehow it all works." He is a member of MENSA International because he has an intelligence quotient (IQ) of 160 so he is one of the most brilliant people in the world. A very interesting thing about him is that he had his shoulders and his arms tatooed to cover all the injuries which he got while he was acting action scenes.

Stallone has always loved painting since he attended the college and he has been painting oil paintings in the expressionist style for more than fifty years. After the death of his first son in 2012 he said "The paintings I'm doing in this period are not very happy, but there is something extraordinary in painting, it is very therapeutic. I fall apart now and then but painting keeps me busy!"

He has been a great actor and he still is very successful, he has starred in some of the most popular movies such as the "Rocky films" and the "Rambo films" which made him an important and famous actor and the latest films with him are "The Expendables films" and the "Creed".

 

• Chuck Norris

His real name is Carlos Ray Norris, he was born in 1940 in Oklaoma. Two of his grandparents are American Indians and the other two are Irish. When he was a child he was bullied because of his mixed ethnicity, Chuck dreamed to find a way to defend himself from bullies who tormented him. So he started practicing martial arts and he founded a martial art called Chun Kuk Do, which means "The Universal Way" , it is an American hybrid martial art style. His dad had a drinking problem but Chuck loved him much and he was the only person who had compassion for him. He has two brothers but one of them unfortunately died in Vietnam in 1970. Chuck Norris is a professional karateka and he has never lost a fight since 1968, he has won 168 times. He has been world champion of Karate for seven times and he had been nominated grand master of black belt of eigth grade of taekwondo and he is the first western to win this honor. Chuck collaborated with Bruce Lee and so he started acting in movies.

He enlisted in the United States air force, he was named an honorary Texas Ranger and he has been the testimonial of a model of jeans called Action Jeans. He is a very important actor in America and he has starred as the main character in more than 30 movies. Some of the movies he has starred in are "Missing in Action", dedicated to his dead brother, "Sidekicks", "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" where he plays as himself, "The Expendables films" and one of the most important is "Walker Texas Ranger".

• Jackie Chan

He was born in 1954, in British Hong Kong and his parents were refugees from the Chinese Civil War. His childhood nickname was cannonball because he was always rolling around. He attended an Academy called Peking Opera School where he was placed in a group called "Seven Little Fortunes" a performance group made up of the school's best students and he took part in a series of classic performances which got him noticed by the Chinese film entrepreneurs. As soon as he left the Academy he decided to become a stuntman in the Shaw Brothers Studios, and later an actor, thus Jackie became the highest paid stuntman in Hong Kong. His firsts roles were as a stuntman in the Bruce Lee films. After entering the film industry he got the opportunity to train in hapkido, which is a form of self-defence and Chan eventually attained a black belt. Jackie Chan also trained in other

styles of martial arts such as karate, judo and taekwondo. Become one of the most famous stars in Asia, he founded his own production company, the "Golden Way" and its school for stuntmen: the "Jackie Chan Stuntmen Association". Jackie Chan also holds the Guinness record for "More stunts made by a living actor".

Last but not least Chan is actively engaged with regard to charity, the reception centers for children and the elderly, and the Hong Kong economy, very often attending conferences on social and promoting events support among the poor : for example the Tsunami victims or the children forced to live in poor conditions. Jackie has starred in so many films but the film which made him famous wordwide was "Rumble in the Bronx" shot in America. Then he teamed up with Owen Wilson in the Western action comedy "Shanghai Noon", which spawned the sequel "Shanghai Knights" and with Chris Tucker in the "Rush Hour" films. He is a great actor and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and The Hong Kong Star, in Hong Kong. In 2016 he won an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.

    

          

• Jean-Claude Van Damme

He was born in Belgium. When he was a child he started practicing karate and martial arts and then for 5 years he practiced classic dance. At 18 he opened his own gym called "California Fitness Center". In addition to karate, Van Damme studied Taekwondo, Kickboxing and Muay Thai. His only engagement as a stuntman is in the film "Missing In Action" starring Chuck Norris. Thanks to his many talents he attained the title of Mr. Belgium.

A curiousity about Van Damme is that he can't stand Steven Seagal. It all happened in 1997 when both of them were invited to a party organized by Sylvester Stallone. Steven maintained that he could kick Jean Claude without problems. Jean Claude proposed him to fight but then he changed his mind because he didn't want to ruin the party. In 2010 the Italian rap group Club Dogo dedicated to Jean-Claude Van Damme a song called JCVD, included in the album "Che bello essere noi" and another Italian rapper Dargen D'Amico dedicated a song to him called Van Damme. Jean Claude has starred in many films such as "Universal Soldier", "Welcome to the Jungle", "Kickboxers", "The expendables" and many others.

What do you think about these actors? Do you like action movies? Have you ever seen a movie with one of these Actors?

Karina