James M. "Jim" "the Dragon" Kelly (born May 5, 1946) is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 athlete, actor, and martial artist who came to prominence in the early 1970s. He is best known from his performance as Williams in the 1973 Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...

 film Enter the Dragon

Enter the Dragon

Enter the Dragon is a 1973 Hong Kong martial arts co-production with Golden Harvest and Warner Bros. studios, directed by Robert Clouse; starring Bruce Lee, Jim Kelly and John Saxon. This is Bruce Lee's final film appearance before his death on July 20, 1973...

.

Early life

Kelly was born in Paris

Paris, Kentucky

As of the census of 2000, there were 9,183 people, 3,857 households, and 2,487 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 4,222 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 84.23% White, 12.71% African American, 0.16% Native American, 0.16%...

, Kentucky

Kentucky

The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

. He began his athletic career in high school, competing successfully in basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

, football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

, and track and field

Track and field

Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...

. He attended the University of Louisville

University of Louisville

The University of Louisville is a public university in Louisville, Kentucky. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one of the first universities chartered west of the Allegheny Mountains. The university is mandated by the Kentucky General...

 where he played football, but left during his freshman year to begin studying Shorin-ryu

Shorin-Ryu

is one of the major modern Okinawan martial arts. It was founded by Choshin Chibana in 1933. Shōrin-ryū combines elements of the traditional Okinawan fighting styles of Shuri-te.-History:Chosin Chibana was a top student of the great master of shuri-te, Anko Itosu...

 karate

Karate

is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It was developed from indigenous fighting methods called and Chinese kenpō. Karate is a striking art using punching, kicking, knee and elbow strikes, and open-handed techniques such as knife-hands. Grappling, locks,...

. Additionally, he trained in Okinawa-te karate under the direction of Shihan Gordon Doversola. Kelly won the Huntington Beach Classic and credits Doversola with making him a world class fighter. During this time other notables as Joe Lewis would also train in the same dojo

Dojo

A is a Japanese term which literally means "place of the way". Initially, dōjōs were adjunct to temples. The term can refer to a formal training place for any of the Japanese do arts but typically it is considered the formal gathering place for students of any Japanese martial arts style to...

 (martial arts school). After winning the middleweight title at the 1971 International Middleweight Karate Championship in Long Beach, he opened his own dojo. He taught karate to actor Calvin Lockhart

Calvin Lockhart

Calvin Lockhart was a Bahamian-American actor on stage and in film. He was best known for the role of a big time gangster "Biggie Smalls" in the 1975 film Let's Do It Again, not to be confused with the deceased rapper Biggie Smalls...

 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 is best known for co-starring alongside Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee was a Chinese American, Hong Kong actor, martial arts instructor, philosopher, film director, film producer, screenwriter, and founder of the Jeet Kune Do martial arts movement...

 in Enter the Dragon

Enter the Dragon

Enter the Dragon is a 1973 Hong Kong martial arts co-production with Golden Harvest and Warner Bros. studios, directed by Robert Clouse; starring Bruce Lee, Jim Kelly and John Saxon. This is Bruce Lee's final film appearance before his death on July 20, 1973...

. This appearance led to starring roles in a string of martial arts-themed blaxploitation

Blaxploitation

Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States circa 1970. It is considered an ethnic sub-genre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre's audience...

 films, among them Melinda and Black Belt Jones

Black Belt Jones

Black Belt Jones is a 1974 American Blaxploitation action film. The main musical theme was performed by the funk guitarist Dennis Coffey. The film was featured as number 38 on the documentary The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made.-Plot:...

. Most of Kelly's film roles played up the novelty of an African-American martial arts master.

After his appearance in 1982's One Down, Two to Go, Kelly appeared in movies only rarely. The role in Enter the Dragon was originally supposed to go to actor Rockne Tarkington, who unexpectedly dropped out days before shooting in Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

. Producer Fred Weintraub

Fred Weintraub

Fred Weintraub is an American film and television producer, director and screenwriter.-Background:Weintraub is the original owner and host of The Bitter End in New York City's Greenwich Village...

 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 large afro

Afro

Afro, sometimes shortened to fro and also known as a "natural", is a hairstyle worn naturally by people with lengthy kinky hair texture or specifically styled in such a fashion by individuals with naturally curly or straight hair...

.

He earned a three picture contract with Warner Brothers and made Three the Hard Way with Jim Brown

Jim Brown

James Nathaniel "Jim" Brown is an American former professional football player who has also made his mark as an actor. He is best known for his exceptional and record-setting nine-year career as a running back for the NFL Cleveland Browns from 1957 to 1965. In 2002, he was named by Sporting News...

 and Fred Williamson

Fred Williamson

Fred "The Hammer" Williamson is an American actor, architect, and former professional American football defensive back who played mainly in the American Football League during the 1960s.-Football career:...

, and Hot Potato, a movie in which he rescues a diplomat's daughter from the jungles of Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

. After his contract ended with Warner Brothers, he starred in low-budget films Black Samurai

Black Samurai

Black Samurai is a 1977 American blaxploitation film directed by Al Adamson, starring Jim Kelly. The script is credited to B. Readick, with additional story ideas from Marco Joachim...

, Death Dimension, and Tattoo Connection.

A deleted scene from the film, on the extras of the DVD for "Undercover Brother

Undercover Brother

Undercover Brother is a 2002 American comedy film starring Eddie Griffin and directed by Malcolm D. Lee. The screenplay is by Michael McCullers and co-executive producer John Ridley, who created the original internet animation characters. It spoofs blaxploitation films of the 1970s as well as a...

" shows him in a cameo appearance with Eddie Griffin

Eddie Griffin

Edward James "Eddie" Griffin, Jr. is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his sitcom, Malcolm & Eddie along with co-star, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, and his role in the 2002 comedy film Undercover Brother as the film’s title character.-Early life:Griffin was born in Kansas City,...

.

Most recent activities

He was a professional tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

 player on the USTA Senior Men's Circuit.

In 2004, he appeared with NBA

National Basketball Association

The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...

 star LeBron James

LeBron James

LeBron Raymone James is an American professional basketball player for the Miami Heat of the National Basketball Association . Nicknamed "King James", he was a three-time "Mr. Basketball" of Ohio in high school, and was highly promoted in the national media as a future NBA superstar while a...

 in the Nike

Nike, Inc.

Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...

 commercial "Chamber of Fear", a spoof of the Bruce Lee film Game of Death

Game of Death

The Game of Death is a 1972 film starring Bruce Lee. It was almost the last film Bruce Lee had planned to be the demonstration piece of his martial art Jeet Kune Do. Over 100 minutes of footage was shot before his death, some of which was later misplaced in the Golden Harvest archives...

.

Kelly resides in Southern California

Southern California

Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

 and works as a professional tennis coach. He is still a popular draw at conventions such as the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con International.

Film

• Melinda (1972)
• Enter the Dragon
  Enter the Dragon
  Enter the Dragon is a 1973 Hong Kong martial arts co-production with Golden Harvest and Warner Bros. studios, directed by Robert Clouse; starring Bruce Lee, Jim Kelly and John Saxon. This is Bruce Lee's final film appearance before his death on July 20, 1973...
  
  (1973) as Williams
• Black Belt Jones
  Black Belt Jones
  Black Belt Jones is a 1974 American Blaxploitation action film. The main musical theme was performed by the funk guitarist Dennis Coffey. The film was featured as number 38 on the documentary The 50 Worst Movies Ever Made.-Plot:...
  
  (1974) as Black Belt Jones
• Three the Hard Way
  Three the Hard Way (film)
  Three the Hard Way is a 1974 action blaxploitation film starring Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, and Jim Kelly, written by Eric Bercovici and Jerrold L. Ludwig and directed by Gordon Parks, Jr....
  
  (1974) as Mister Keyes
• Golden Needles
  Golden Needles
  Golden Needles is a 1974 action film starring Joe Don Baker, Elizabeth Ashley, Ann Sothern, Jim Kelly, Burgess Meredith, Roy Chiao and directed by Robert Clouse.-Plot:...
  
  (1974)
• Take a Hard Ride (1975) as Kashtok
• Hot Potato
  Hot Potato (film)
  Hot Potato is a 1976 action film written and directed by Oscar Williams. The film was a Weintraub and Heller production starring Jim Kelly. Jim Kelly also arranged his own fight scenes. Hot Potato was filmed on location in Chiang Mai, Thailand. It is a follow-up to Black Belt Jones. The film was...
  
  (1976) as Jones
• Black Samurai
  Black Samurai
  Black Samurai is a 1977 American blaxploitation film directed by Al Adamson, starring Jim Kelly. The script is credited to B. Readick, with additional story ideas from Marco Joachim...
  
  (1977) as Robert Sand
• The Tattoo Connection (a.k.a. E yu tou hei sha xing, Black Belt Jones 2) (1978)
• Death Dimension
  Death Dimension
  Death Dimension is a 1978 American B-list action and martial arts film by Al Adamson starring Jim Kelly, Harold Sakata, George Lazenby, Terry Moore, and Aldo Ray.The plot is about a scientist, Professor Mason, who invented a powerful freezing bomb for a gangster leader...
  
  (1978)
• The Amazing Mr. No Legs (1981)
• One Down, Two To Go (1982)
• Stranglehold (1994)
• Macked, Hammered, Slaughtered and Shafted (2004)
• Afro Ninja Destiny (2009)
• Afro Ninja (2009)

External links