The Urban Action Showcase Honors
Master Jim Kelly
Sponsors the Jim Kelly Tribute Films:
Enter the Dragon and Black Belt Jones!
Free with Urban Action Expo Pass!
(May 5, 1946 to June 29, 2013)
In honor of Master Jim Kelly the Urban Action Showcase will screen Black Belt Jones at the AMC Theater on November 9, 2013. Screening is Free with the Urban Action Expo 1 or 2 Day Pass, VIP Pass, Festival Film Pass or Showcase Pass! (First come First Serve Seats are limited!)
Kelly was born in Millersburg, Kentucky. He began his athletic career in high school, competing in Basketball, Football, and track and field. He attended the University of Louisville where he played football, but left during his freshman year to begin studying Shorin Ryu Karate. Kelly began his martial arts career under the tutelage of Shaolin-Do Grand Master Sin Kwan The’ in Lexington, Kentucky. Additionally, he trained in Okinawan karate under the direction of Masters Parker Shelton, Nate Patton, and Gordon Doversola. During the early 1970's, Jim Kelly became one of the most decorated world karate champions in the sport. In 1971, Kelly won four prestigious championships that same year, most notably, the World Middleweight Karate title at the 1971 Long Beach International Karate Championships. He opened his own dojo which was frequented by numerous Hollywood celebrities. He taught karate to actor Calvin Lockhart for a role in a thriller feature film Melinda; he ended up playing a martial arts instructor in the movie.
Acting career
As an actor, Kelly became the first Black martial arts film star. Jim Kelly co-starred alongside Bruce Lee in the block buster, Enter The Dragon. The role was originally supposed to go to actor Rockne Tarkington, who unexpectedly dropped out days before shooting in Hong Kong. Producer Fred Weintraub had heard about Jim Kelly's karate studio in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles, and went there to see him and was immediately impressed. Kelly's role as Williams, an inner-city karate instructor who is harassed by white police officers, made a good impression upon directors and African-American males with his cool-cat demeanor and formidable physical skills.
This appearance led to starring roles in a string of martial arts-themed Blaxploitation films, among them Melinda and Black Belt Jones. Most of Kelly's film roles played up the novelty of an African-American martial arts master.
He earned a three-film contract with Warner Brothers and made Three the Hard Way with Jim Brown and Fred Williamson, and Hot Potato, a movie in which he rescues a diplomat's daughter from the jungles of Thailand. After his contract ended with Warner Brothers, he starred in low-budget films Black Samurai, Death Dimension, and Tattoo Connection.
After his appearance in 1982's One Down, Two to Go, Kelly appeared in movies only rarely.
A deleted scene from the film "Undercover Brother", included on the DVD extra features, shows him in a cameo appearance with Eddie Griffin.
In 2009 he played Cleavon Washington in what would be his last film, albeit a cameo appearance in the film Afro-Ninja produced, directed and starring Veteran Stuntman Mark Hicks.
He was a professional Tennis player on the USTA Senior Men's Circuit. He often played tennis for recreation in the 1970's at Los Angeles' Plummer Park in West Hollywood.
In 2004, he appeared with NBA star LeBron James in the Nike commercial "Chamber of Fear", a similarity of the Bruce Lee film Game of Death.
Kelly resided in Southern California and worked as a professional tennis coach. He was still a popular draw at conventions such as the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International.
He considered Bruce Lee as "the greatest martial artist, who ever lived".
