Jean-Claude Van Damme

Born Jean-Claude Van Varenberg in Brussels in 1960, he started Shotokan karate at ten and by his teens held a European Professional Karate Association middleweight title and a national bodybuilding crown. He moved to the United States in 1982 chasing an actor's life and broke through six years later as the lead in Bloodsport. A decade-long run followed — Kickboxer, Universal Soldier, Timecop, Street Fighter — that made him a sex symbol and a fixture of early-90s action cinema, with three Hong Kong directors (John Woo, Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam) using him as their bridge to Western filmmaking. Popul…