RIP action hero Jim Kellyby Mike Sargent
July 1, 2013
Martial artist, athlete, and action hero Jim Kelly passed this past Saturday. He was 67 and according to his former wife Marilyn Dishman died of cancer.
6’2″ Kelly was most known for his small but significant role in the film enter the Dragon alongside Bruce Lee.
Kelly made his debut in the 1972 action film Melinda Alongside matinee idol Calvin Lockhart & Vonetta Mcgee. After His groundbreaking appearance in Enter the Dragon he went on to star and several other iconic films in the 70s most notably Black Belt Jones and Three the Hard Way.
Part of Kelly’s appeal as you can see in films like black belt Jones and most blaxploitation Films of the time exemplified how black people felt in white dominated society that often targeted them. this is racial profiling 70s style.
After the 70s and the 1982 de facto sequel to Three The Hard Way; One Down Two To Go, Jim Kelly moved on to other things besides film. Primary of which becoming a ranked tennis pro and traveling the world in that capacity.
Over the next 30 years he occasionally appeared in the TV shows like Highway to Heaven, and the occasional commercial like the Nike commercial he did into 2004 with NBA star LeBron James,which was a spoof of the Bruce lee film Game of Death and was banned in China.
Besides what he represented to many young African-Americans at the time, Jim Kelly and the novelty at the time of a black martial artist allowed a number of things to happen that in many ways has yet to happen again.
His Black Belt Jones was really a bridge between two genres of film that were popular in the 70s karate films and blacks flirtation films.
But more significantly having a karate action film even with its Black star allowed for Kelly’s films to be released around the world, something very few if not blaxploitation films were able to do at the time and black films still today have an enormous difficulty doing.
Black Belt Jones and it’s de facto sequel The Tattoo connection and other Jim Kelly films saw quite a bit of the international market.
Kelly’s Afro and sideburns” cool cat demeanor earned him a three film contract with Warner Bros. A significant African-American acting career accomplishment then and even now.
He was cited as saying that he left the business not because he wanted to, and in his eyes never really left the movie business but a certain point was unable to get the type of projects he wanted to do.
Kelly was born in Paris, Kentucky and began his athletic career in high school competing in basketball, football, track and field.
In 1971 he won four international martial arts championships and scored the role in Enter the Dragon when more known and established actor Rockne Tarkington dropped out unexpectedly. Rockne as Blaxploitation aficionados may know had the starring role that year in Warner Bros. film Black Sampson.
Kelly’s brief but memorable appearance and Enter the Dragon open the door for him to make nearly a dozen other films.
He also choreographed his own fight sequences in films like His 1976 action film Hot Potato, which was written and directed by one of the few black writers/directors/ producers of the time Oscar Williams. He had previously directed him in Black belt Jones
His most recent films were the action comedies Afro Ninja and a cameo role in Undercover Brother that was cut out of the theatrical release but can be seen on the DVD.
