Say hello to the Muscles from Brussels.
There are a few reasons why Jean-Claude Van Damme's light in Hollywood got snuffed out. The dude who popularized the split (five bucks goes to the guy that can do it without hurting their groin) during his iconic training sequences, was big time in the 1980s.
His films like Bloodsport, which made 50 million off of a 1.5 million dollar budget and Lionheart, helped revive the martial arts genre. Yeah, you remember his Frank Dux character and his fight with the absolutely stacked Bolo Yeung in Bloodsport. Ah, the kumate, such fond memories.
Take me back to 1988.
Van Damme's rise and fall was typical of the guy that received too much a little too fast, had butter fingers, and let it all slip away. His first issue was that he was a partier. He liked to hit the bottle often and he partied like a Rolling Stone. He reportedly spent 10K per week on coke. Whether you are shooting that up your nose or in your veins, either way it's a deadly and expensive habit.
This led to him becoming unreliable on set. He would show up tore up from the floor up, and he would be very difficult with his castmates and directors. He even missed work. Because of this, many actors and filmmakers refused to work with him. The fact that he also has bipolar only made matters worse. It only served to further complicate things.
After his highest grossing film, Timecop, which made 100 million at the box office, his film grosses and demand as an actor shrunk and shrunk. He should have signed on to do a trilogy of the movie, Universal would have paid him 36 million, but he declined. He wanted to make money that a star like Jim Carrey was making at the time, which was close to 20 million a picture. His unreasonably high salary demands, and his lack of capitalizing on his success, hurt him.
This reason is more about his fidelity (or lack of it) than anything. The Belgian loved women. Don't get me wrong, I do too, but Van Damme even moreso. To the point where he had an affair with Aussie actress/singer, Kylie Mingoue while they were filming a movie in Thailand. He said of the affair, “It was a sweet kiss that turned into beautiful lovemaking”. He further said that it would have been “impossible” not to have an affair given the circumstances. The fact that he fancied women to the extreme very well could have posed as yet another distraction in his life that wounded his film career.
After some time, Van Damme would step away from Hollywood and own up to and deal with his failings. He reunited with his third wife, Gladys Portuguese (he had four), and he would return making some straight to DVD releases, while doing interviews and speeches. To show that his old greedy ways didn't consume him anymore, he actually turned down Sly Stallone's offer to be in the first Expendables movie, even after he was told he would make a grip (a lot of money) for starring in it. He wanted to make sure he was making a worthwhile film, regardless of the price. Sly kept talking to him and he would eventually appear in Expendables Part 2.
Van Damme is a lot more humble these days. Grateful to be alive and making movies again. This guy at 65 years old is getting another swing. He may not be the star that he once was, during his late 80s and early 90s days but, and this is important, I'm not so sure he would want to be even if given the chance. He lived life in the fast lane once before, and saw for himself that it wasn't all that it was cracked up to be, why jump on the Autobahn again?
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