05/08/2024
On remembering the birthday of the late martial artist, Mr. jim Kelly.
In a genre dominated by Asian faces and settings, Jim 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” (1973), 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.”
“Enter the Dragon” was a box-office success and made Kelly a new star in two rising genres: martial arts and blaxploitation, both of which emphasized violent action. Critics were not always impressed. In a brief review of “Black Belt Jones,” in 1974, A. H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote that “the succession of clashes and explicit street language tend to become repetitious and as unwittingly comic as the cast’s largely mechanical performances.”
n a 2010 interview with Salon, Mr. Kelly said he began studying martial arts in 1964, learning the Okinawan Shorin-Ryu style of karate from Parker Shelton in Lexington, Ky. He later studied in Chicago before receiving his black belt in Southern California. In 1971, he won the middleweight division title at the Long Beach International Karate Championships.
Two years later, after receiving one small film role playing a martial arts instructor, Mr. Kelly appeared in “Enter the Dragon” after being cast at the last minute when another actor dropped out. “I broke down the color barrier,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 2010. “I was the first black martial artist to become a movie star.” (New York Times)
Happy Birthday, Jim Kelly!
