BIOGRAPHY

BIOGRAPHY

Jackie Chan was born in Hong Kong on April 7th, 1954. His parents, Charles and Lee-lee Chan named him chan Kong-sang which means "Born in Hong Kong." Jackie weighed 12 pounds When he was born and his mother required surgery to deliver him. Jackie´s parents were so poor that they had to borrow money form friends to pay the doctor.
Although Jackie´s parents were poor, they had steady jobs at the french embassy in Hong Kong. Charles was a cook and Lee-lee was a Housekeeper. Together, the Chan family lived on Victoria Peak in Hong Kong. When Jackie was young, his father would practice kung fu. Charles Chan believed that learning kung fu would help build Jackie´s character, teaching him patience, strength and courage.
When Jackie was seven years old Charles took a job as the head cook at the American embassy in Australia. He felt that it would be best for Jackie to stay behind in Hong Kong to learn a skill and so enrolled him in the China Drama Academy where Jackie Would live for the next 10 years of his life.
During Jackie´s time at the school, he learned martial arts, acrobatics, singing, and acting. The school was meant to prapare boys for life in the Peking Opera. Chinesa Opera was very different from any other kind of opera. It included singing, tumbling, and acrobatics as well as martial arts skills and acting. Students ate the school were severely disciplined and were beaten if they disobeyed or made mistakes. It was a very harsh and difficult life but Jackie had nowhere else to go, so he stayed. he rarely saw his parents for many years.
While at the China Academy, Jackie made his acting debut at age eigth in the Cantonese movie "Seven Little Valiant Fighters: Big and Little Wong Tin Bar." He later teamed  with other opera students in a performance group called "The Seven Little Fortunes." Fellow actors Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao were also members. Years later ther three would work together and become known as The Three Brothers. As Jackie got older he worked as a stuntman and an extra in the Hong Kong film industry.
When Jackie was 17, the he graduated from the China Drama Academy. Unfortunately the chinese opera was no loger very popular, so Jackie and his classmates had to find other work. This was difficult because at the school they were never  taught  how to read or write. The only work available to them was unskilled labor or stunt work. Each year many movies here made in Hong Kong and there was always a need for young, strong stuntmen. Jackie was extraordinarily atlhetic and inventive, adn soon gained a reputation for being fearless; Jackie Chan would try anything. Soon he was in demand.


Over the next few years, Jackie worked as a stuntman, but  when the Hong Kong movie industry began  began to fail , he was forced to go to Australia  to live with his parents. He worked in a restaurant and on a construction site. It was there that he got the name "Jackie." A worker named  Jack had trouble pronouncing "Kong-sang" and started calling Jackie "Little Jack." That soon  became "Jackie and the name stuck.

Jackie was very unhappy in Australia. The constrution work was difficult and boring. His salvation came in the form of a telegram from a man named Willie Chan. Willie Chan worked in the Hong Kong movie insdustry and was looking for someone to star in a new movie being  by Lo Wei, a famous Hong Kong producer/director. Willie had seen Jackie at work as a stuntman and had been impressed. 
"Jackie and Willie Chan"
Jackie called Willie and they talked. Jackie didn´t know it but Willie would end up becoming his best friend and manager. Soon Jackie was on his was back Hong Kong to star in "New Fist Fury." It was 1976 and Jackie chan was 21 years old.

Jackie in "New Fist Fury 1976"

Once Jackie got back to Hong Kong, Willie Chan Took control over Jackie´s career. To this day Jackie is quick to point out that he owes his sucess to Willie. However, the movies that Jackie made for Lo Wei were not very successful. The Problem was that Jackie´s talents were not being used properly. It was only when Jackie was able to contribute his own ideas that he became a star. He brougth  humor to martial arts movie; is first success was "Snake in Eagle´s Shadow." This was followed by "Drunken Master" (Another blockbuster) and Jackie´s first ever directing job, "Fearless Hyena." All were big hits.



Jackie was becoming a huge success in Asia. Unfortunately, it would be many years before the same could be said of his popularity in America. After as series of lukewarm receptions in the U.S., mostly due to miscasting, Jackie left the States and focused his attention on marking movies in Hong Kong. It would be 10 years before he returned to make "Rumble in The Bronx" the movie that introduced Jackie to American audiences and secured him a place in their hearts (and their box office). Rumble was followed  by The Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon series which put Jackie on The Hollywood A List.
Despite his hollywood successes, Jackie became frustrated  by the lack of varied roles for Asian actors and his own inability to control certain aspects of the filming in America. He continued to try, However, marking "The Tuxedo," "The Medalion" and "Around The World in 80 Days," none of which was the blockbuster That Rush Hour or Shanghai Noon had been.
Jackie´s lifelong devotion to fitness has served him well as he continues to do stun work and action sequences in his films. In recent years, Jackie´s focus has shifted and he is trying new genrs of film -  Fantasy, drama, - romance - and spending more and more time on his charity work. He takes his work as ambassador fo UNICEF/UNAIDS.
very seriously and spends all his spare time working tirelessly  for children, the elderly, and those in need. He continues to make films in Hong Kong, Including the blocknuster drama New Police Story 2004.
Jackie has been married to Lin Feng-Jiao since 1982 and has a son, actor-singer, Jaycee Chan. To learn  more about Jackie you can read his biography, I am Jackie Chan.

BIOGRAPHY BY THE OFFICIAL JACKIE CHAN WEBSITE


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