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Fact File: Ralph George Macchio
Born November 4, 1961, Huntington
(long Island), New York Married To Phyllis
Fuerro Children: Julia
and Daniel. Father:
Ralph Mother: Rosalie
Our hero, Daniel is played by Ralph Macchio (pronounced
MATCH-io or mah-KEY-yo depending on the
source of the interview). Ralph, was born and is still a resident of Long Island,
N.Y.
"Back
when I was a little kid, like three or something, I used to watch old movies
of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly and it really affected me. It was awesome
and I wanted to dance! So my mom enrolled me in a dance class, and that
was just great. I was the only boy there! I'd do a little tap dance and
people would clap. There's a rush you get when you make people happy for
three minutes."
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Ralph
began performing in local musical productions as a teenager, and at 16, he was
signed by a talent agent called Marie Pastor who had seen him in a dance recital
and soon began working in TV commercials.
"There
was something about me she really liked and she thought I could develop
into a fine actor so she sat me down with my parents and we talked about
it. My parents were concerned about it all at first, but as they got to
know Marie, they soon realised there was nothing to worry about, it was
all above board. We began kind of cautiously, you know, with acting lessons
and auditions. But pretty soon I got my first couple of jobs and we've never
looked back."
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His first acting part may not have seemed particularly auspicious - It was in
an advert for 'Bubble Yum'! - but he quickly moved on from the ads into T.V.,and
then, before he had even graduated from Half Hollow Hills High School West in
1979 he had made his debut in the adolescent comedy Up the Academy (released
in 1980). He did not appear in another feature film until working in Francis
Ford Coppola's epic of teenage rivalry The Outsiders (1983), but in the
meantime he was promptly cast in two TV "Movies of the Week", Journey
to Survival and Dangerous Company. Macchio also played on the TV
comedy/drama Eight Is Enough as 'Jeremy Andretti' from 1980 to 1981.
He was listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1984" in John Willis'
Screen World, Vol. 36. What he then did was the first Karate Kid, in
late 1983/early 1984 when he was aged 22. Even that shoot, while under way,
seemed unpromising, as Macchio recalls:
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"The
other lead [Mr. Miyagi] was written with Toshiro Mifune in mind, so when
they cast Pat Morita, I thought, 'OK, I'm this Luke Skywalker type and he's
Yoda and this is all very hokey with a corny ending sure to fall flat.'
But as we were shooting, some of the scenes started to feel right. Even
so, I didn't know what we had - this small, little movie that in the end
got to the heart of everybody who saw it, ages 6 to 60. It turns out we'd created this nice little story with characters everyone would relate to. It had a positive message, it was honest and true. As much as it was formulated - it still had a heart to it and touched upon real things that teenagers go through."
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Which led to one of the other most important moments in his life....
"I'll
never forget the first time I saw 'Karate Kid' in a movie theater with a
real audience. I stood in the back and watched them laugh and applaud and
kept thinking, `That's me. They're cheering me. This is a movie everybody
loves, and I'm in every scene in it."
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He was completely knocked out by the success of the first Karate Kid movie which
is still his favourite of the series:
"That
one was just magical! Pat Morita and everyone, we all brought so much to
it, we never thought it would be such a blockbuster. We did it in only 42
days and it didn't have this big enormous budget. It will always have a
special place in my heart."
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Interestingly,
whilst he was not entirely happy about the second Karate Kid film, he was pleased
with its successor - "I really like it a lot. I like it a lot better than 'Karate
Kid II' which got away from the characters and spent too much time on the fighting.
This one is more along the lines of the original, it's about the people."
However, he was not always so happy about it - "At first, I wasn't looking forward
to it, I basically was signed to three pictures from the start, so I had to.
But now that it's over, I'm really glad I did it. It's nice, I feel like I've
watched this kid, Daniel, grow up. After this he can no longer be a kid again."
On the subject of karate Ralph openly admits "I was really only good enough
at karate to make it look good," he says. "But I grew up doing dance recitals
and musicals, and Gene Kelly was who I wanted to be my whole childhood. Certainly
the dance training came in handy in preparing him for the intensive workouts
that he undertook for nearly 3 months to prepare for the role. Soccer, another
interest, also proved useful when the script called for his character to do
some fancy footwork for the soccer trials scene.
Recently, In a telephone interview, Macchio told a reporter that he doesn't
argue with those who say he's been typecast by his Karate Kid character:-
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"I
don't argue that that's not true. It's certainly one of those things that's
a good problem to have -- that's the optimistic way to look at it. There
were times years ago where I was frustrated by it. But The Karate Kid films
-- certainly the first one, which was by far my favorite of the three I
did -- were just wonderful movies. Who would have known that they would
have turned out to be so universally known? Being tied in to a character
like that makes it tough to change people's minds -- certainly in the Hollywood
world." "How could one argue about being tied in with a character and a movie that was so positive, such good, clean entertainment? There's not too much of that these days...."
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Ralph is basically a very shy person and is a bit reserved with people until
he gets to know them better. He says that he doesn't like doing interviews as
he hates talking about himself.
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Ralph
& Phyllis Macchio
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And the future? He says he would love to become a successful writer. But will there ever be a Karate Kid IV? Ralph said at the time of the release Karate Kid III:- "if I were to do it, I'd ask for more creative control. There would have to be a different concept."
Macchio still keeps busy. He recently finished travelling in the Broadway production of "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying." He has a wife of eight years -- Phyllis Fierro, whom he met at a cousin's birthday party -- and a daughter Julia, 4 and a very young son, surely named after the character that made him -- Daniel ...
Fact
File: Elisabeth J. Shue
Born October 06, 1963, Wilmington,
Delaware Married To Davis
Guggenheim Children: Miles
William Guggenheim (11-12-97)
Daniel's Girlfriend 'Ali' is brought to life by Elizabeth Shue. Elizabeth is
the daughter of a wealthy, Mayflower family, rather like her character in the
movie. Elizabeth may not have been inspired by the role in retrospect, but she
certainly does some solid acting. Particularly well acted scenes are the more
emotional ones like Daniel's beach beating. Also her privileged background provided
an excellent base for the upmarket persona of 'Ali'.
Elizabeth was born in Wilmington, Delaware and raised in South Orange, New Jersey
and is the sister to Melrose Place star Andrew Shue.
An athlete of some prowess, notably in soccer and gymnastics, she nevertheless
felt unable to complete with her three brothers and after a friend suggested
that her gymnastic abilities might be good for commercials, Elisabeth agreed—and
from her initial stint for a Florida theme park, her perky screen presence and
good looks quickly resulted in work with a number of national advertisers,
including Hellman's Mayonnaise and Burger King.
In performing, Elizabeth quickly found that she had found
a great way for her to express herself as an individual. Graduating to 'proper'
acting, which she sandwiched in between academic studies at Wellesley and Harvard,
Elisabeth landed a role in the TV series Call to Glory, set in the early
'60s. Later, after she had auditioned for the female part in an aborted early
production of The Hot Spot, she was picked to star opposite Ralph Macchio
in The Karate Kid. She had recently turned 20. Since then she has gone
on to play a number of 'good girl next door' roles before finally breaking out
of that mould with the critically acclaimed Leaving las Vegas with Nicholas
Cage.
Fact
File: Noriyuki
"Pat" Morita Born June
28, 1932, Isleton, California
Starring
as the wise teacher Mr. Miyagi, is Noriyuki (or "Pat") Morita. an
Academy Award nomination followed for Best Supporting Actor for the career-making
role of Daniel's Okinawan Karate teacher. The Japanese-American actor, who lived
in an American internment camp for Japanese during World War II and at 29 gave
up a promising management career programming computers for Aerojet General,
a major Californian defense contractor, to become a standup comic.
"I
like Miyagi. I think he's going to continue for a long, long time."
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After stints in nightclubs and on TV variety shows, he acted in films such as
Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) and Midway (1976). His TV roles include Arnold
(1975–76, 1982–83) in the series Happy Days, M*A*S*H, and he was the star of
the detective series Ohara (1987–88). Recent films include Even Cowgirls Get
the Blues (1994).
The following is from an article that appeared in Issue
#6, Spring 1996 of Furyu:
The Budo Journal called Noriyuki Pat
Morita: In the Footsteps of a Sensei by Charles
C. Goodin
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Everyone has their favorite Pat Morita role: Arnold, from Happy Days; the indecisive Japanese officer in Midway (who advised that the planes be armed with bombs. . .No, make that torpedoes). . .Ohara; Mr. T from Mister T and Tina-America's first television series starring an Asian-American; the taxi driver in Honeymoon in Vegas; the countless zany characters in two decades of Hawaii television commercials. . . However, in the hearts and minds of millions of movie fans around the world Pat Morita is "Miyagi sensei." The Karate Kid, followed by the even more commercially successful Karate Kid II, propelled him into international stardom. As a result, he was nominated for an Oscar as the Best Supporting Actor in 1985. And, amidst innumerable other accolades, was last year honored with a Star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. While Noriyuki "Pat" Morita is undoubtedly the most recognized "sensei" in the world, he is the first to honestly admit that, except for some training for the Karate Kid films, he has never formally practiced a martial art (he was briefly exposed to judo as a teenager by his cousins but this mostly consisted of learning how to tumble). Once, as we were leaving a restaurant in Honolulu a young man across the street yelled out happily at the top of his lungs, "Hey! Mr. Miyagi!" Another time at the Ilikai Hotel an elderly Japanese gentleman came up to us and bowed very respectfully. After exchanging a few pleasantries in Japanese, Pat turned to me and explained that the man was a karate sensei from Japan who was a great admirer of his movies. The same thing happens at the beach, or in hotels, airports, at shopping malls. . . everywhere he goes. Children are especially enchanted. You can tell from the glow on all their faces that they are meeting their hero.
Morita's parents emigrated from Japan to California just after the turn of this century. He was born on June 28, 1932 as Noriyuki Morita in Isleton, California, and is the youngest of two children. His father was an itinerant fruit worker who followed the harvests and worked in the off-season as a nurseryman and handyman. Life was simple and hard-dirt floors, a single bulb for electricity, a leaky roof. Then, at the tender age of two, the young "Nori" was stricken with spinal tuberculosis and was abruptly taken away from his family. For the next nine years, he was hospitalized at Weimar Joint Sanatorium in Northern California, and for a brief period at the Shriner's Hospital in San Francisco. Due to the nature of his disease and the therapy of the time, young Noriyuki would spend the subsequent years bedridden in a body-cast from shoulder to knees. Unlike other children, he could not run and play, much less even walk. ". . .So I made puppets out of socks to entertain the nurses and other kids," Morita recalls. "In many ways, who knows. . .? If it weren't for my disease, I might not be where I am today. . . During that time, for a short spell (fortunately), we had a very strict head nurse-Miss Roberts. She was like a Hitler, the kind of nurse that if, during our afternoon nap, somebody giggled or farted, she would come right through the ward with an 18-inch ruler, pull back the covers and give everybody five or ten whacks. I didn't care because I had a body-cast. So all she could do was whack the cast. It made good noise. I think that's when I became an actor: 'Ow, ow, ow!' My first acting job-pain. But I think I had a lousy agent!" During these formative years, Morita was told on a daily basis that he would never be able to walk. Eventually, four vertebra in his spine were fused. And because he was a real fighter, he would prove his doctors wrong b y walking out of the hospital at the age of 11. In an ironic twist of fate, America had entered World War two years earlier, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Morita's family, like over 110,000 other Americans of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast (Hawaii was not subject to mass internment orders), were interned. Morita walked well enough to be picked up at the hospital by an FBI officer who transported him by car, train and bus to the Gila Internment Camp in Arizona. Morita recalls: "I remember he wore dark glasses and had a mustache and was carrying a gun. Imagine that. I think back to the ludicrosity of it all: an FBI man escorting a recently able-to-walk spinal tubercular 11-year-old to a place behind barbed wire in the middle of nothing!"
Going directly from the confines of a hospital bed to the even-greater confinement of an internment camp, Morita was suddenly surrounded by a Japanese-speaking family and other camp internees of Japanese ancestry. He had spoken only English at the hospital, so it was a cultural shock at first. But he made friends and adapted. "I remember doing the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the school day. It was in a barracks. . . (I remember) my English class; and looking out the window and seeing the American flag waving, juxtaposed against a guard tower in the background, I had this sense of 'What's this all about?' Why am I saying 'liberty and justice for all'? I was too young to rationalize this, but I do remember that the hurt of bigotry began early on and was to last for many, many years. Whenever I think about it, it still hurts." During the latter part of the War, the family was relocated to the Tule Lake Internment Camp in California. Recalling those camp days, the young Morita would anxiously look forward to the arrival of newspapers. Most were written in Japanese but some included small sections in English. He recalls a man walking all day throughout the camp yelling "Rocky Shinpo, Rocky Shinpo!" This was a Japanese-language newspaper published in Colorado. Sometimes other newspapers were brought or mailed by visitors and relatives. Whenever a newspaper arrived, everyone was eager to know about the latest exploits of the Nisei (Japanese American) soldiers in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and 100th Battalion. Cheers would resound throughout the camp whenever accounts of their heroism were read and repeated. The soldiers in the 442nd, 100th, MIS (Military Intelligence Service; the US military's translation and interrogation unit) and 1399th were composed primarily of Japanese Americans from Hawaii and the US Mainland, who become renowned for their acts of courage and sacrifice. So many soldiers were killed or wounded in action from the 100th that it became known as the "Purple Heart Battalion." The 442nd, which absorbed the 100th and fought in Europe, became the most highly decorated unit of its size and length of service in the entire history of the US Army. And Gen. Douglas McArthur's staff credits the men of the MIS for shortening the war in the Pacific by at least two years, thereby savings countless thousands of American and Japanese lives. Morita recalls many emotionally-charged scenes in the camps in which parents sent their sons off to serve for the very country which was imprisoning their families. He especially remembers an old man gripping his only son and saying tearfully, "You just be a good goddamn soldier. Don't embarrass your momma." That young man, along with a great many others, would never return to his family. Morita can still envision that soldier's mother staring hour after hour at a small paper flag bordered in blue with a gold star on it. She was the "Gold Star" mother; someone who had lost a son in the war for the United States. After the war ended and the internees were released, there were many more hard years. Eventually the family resettled in Sacramento and opened a restaurant. It was called the "Ariake Chop Suey" (after the area in Japan where Morita's father was born). They served Chinese food in apredominately black section of town. Morita and his father worked 14-hour-days in the kitchen and his mother, aunties and cousins served the food. This probably explains why today Morita can still whip up great Chinese food. Later in life, Morita would discover that his father was able to book large parties because he included his son's services as an emcee. The young Morita developed his self-confidence performing before crowds that reached up to 300 people. Shortly after graduating from high-school, he joined an aerospace company on the outskirts of Sacramento, where he worked his way up to becoming the head of the computer operations department. After a number of years, Morita became discontented. His weight shot up to nearly 200 pounds which, on his 5-foot, 3-inch frame, made him look like, in his words, "a Japanese butterball." He did not have a college degree or specialized training and realized that he had reached the top of his then chosen career path. So, despite having a good job with security, a four-bedroom home and a wife, child, mother-in-law and three household pets depending on him, he decided that he wanted something more out of life. The rest, as they say, is show-business history. Fast forward 23 years. At the age of 53, Morita lands the role of Miyagi sensei in The Karate Kid. And, he has to work hard to earn it. There were five call-backs, five days of rigorous rehearsals, followed by three solid months of 10-hours-a-day hard training. The executive producer of the project was initially opposed to casting a "comedian" in the dramatic role. Morita convinced him and all the studio heads that he was the definitive Miyagi. The role was physically demanding, to say the least. Morita's childhood back problems made it impossible for him to jump around with co-star Ralph Macchio and the other young, athletic actors. But with his usual "never-say-quit" attitude, coaching by karate champion Pat Johnson, and stunt-double work by the world-renowned Fumio Demura, the action scenes in the film were to become indelibly convincing and memorable. For this author, I can say that there is a lot of Pat Morita in the Miyagi character-more than most people realize. In many ways, Miyagi is an amalgamation of Morita's father and friends from that older generation. When Morita's older brother, Harry, saw the film he said with a tear in his eye, "That's Papa up there." The script for the film did not provide the "back story" for the character; that is, the life events which shaped the character of Miyagi and contributed to his inner strength. This essential element was largely supplied by Morita, drawing from his own life experiences and impressions. One of the most critically acclaimed moments in the film is known as the "drunk scene" (Daniel-san races to Miyagi's house late one night after being bullied at a restaurant.) Morita recalls that the script merely stated that "Daniel finds Miyagi... three sheets into the wind. . .singing. That was it. No dialogue, no reason, no why. . . no nothing! Gimme a break." Morita went to the director, John Avildsen, to ask about the scene. They were already in production and filming around it. "I say, 'John, we got a problem. What's this scene all about? Three sheets into the wind, singing. -What?' God bless him forever for being receptive." Morita suggested the use of a Japanese song he heard as a child in the internment camps. Then he added as a background, "How about every three or four years Miyagi allows himself the luxury of lamenting the son he never had, a son that was to be, a son that he would never see? But, while he was off at war, he learns that mother and child died from complications in childbirth as a result of the deplorable medical conditions present in the internment camp." Morita also suggested that Miyagi was a 442nd vet and had received a Congressional Medal of Honor for valor in battle, which deeply troubled his psyche. "Why had he survived the horrors of battle while his wife and child died?" All the answers to these powerful elements were supplied by Morita, but very few people were ever aware of his contribution to the scene, or of the parallels to his own life and images from his childhood.
Over the years, Morita formed many lifelong friendships with veterans of the 442nd and 100th. In fact, he has been made an honorary member of the 442nd, "C" Company, and was the emcee for their 50th anniversary celebration in Hawaii just a couple of years ago. The veterans' group recognized that his portrayal of Miyagi as a member of the 442nd was motivated by a deep and abiding personal sense of admiration and pride. He will forever be instilled with that pride. Morita is often asked about his role as a "sensei" and the lessons he would like to teach. He wonders why people ask such questions of "an actor who is still struggling to find his own way in life. I don't think I was put on the earth in our time to perpetuate answers to these depth-of-soul-searching questions. Rather, if at all, maybe I've been put on this earth to merely raise these queries in the hearts of others as a result of my actorial interpretive skills- to simply pose these kinds of questions: not necessarily to answer them. Good luck to each of us who walks, crawls, steps or drags through any given time on this earth. Indeed, God bless us all!" As mentioned earlier, Morita is the first to admit that he is an actor, not a karate sensei. But, my observation is, he truly epitomizes the positive qualities of so many of the budo teachers I've met over the years. Morita has overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles-physical, racial and professional-all with a quiet sense of determination and dignity. What is a sensei? The word "teacher" is an in adequate translation at best, but it is formed by two characters, sen-, which means "before" or "previous," and -sei which means "born" or "life." In other words, a sensei is an elder, in particular, an elder deserving of respect. In that sense, Pat Morita is a sensei in the truest sense of the word and those of us in the budo world are fortunate and grateful for the positive role model he has established for us. But, as he has told this writer many times: "Me. . . I'm so lucky I just got to play the part." |
Fact
File: William Zabka
Born October 20, 1965, Location
Unknown UPDATED
21st July 2000
Chief
bully of the "Cobra Kai" and Daniel's arch nemesis Johnny Lawrence
is convincingly brought to life by William Zabka. Billy's father worked in the
movies and TV. As a child he was taken to the sets of his fathers productions.
"When
I was a kid, my dad was working with Clint Eastwood on Any Which Way
You Can. I remember meeting him [Clint] on the set by his brown pickup
truck. He just looked at me a certain way. I respected him and looked up
to him. In my mind he was saying, "You'll be doing this someday." He was
probably really thinking, "Who the hell is this kid?!"
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Billy
Zabka: "When I was fourteen, I was a stand-in for the kid in the Michael
Cain movie, The Island. The make-up artists would put prosthetic scars
on my face for the fun of it. I remember them setting the lights on me...seeing
the cameras...the energy....and watching the kid I was standing in for act.
I said to myself, 'I'll be doing that one day."
Not a lot else
is known about his early life apart from his prowess as am athlete and wrestler,
(he was a high school wrestling champion) but in the early 80's he had found
himself making guest appearances in several TV shows including E/R playing
a "druggie kid", The greatest American Hero in 1983 and Love
Boat. About the same time he auditioned for and won his first feature part
in Karate Kid which involved a great deal of physical work and training,
both before and after being finally awarded the part. He turned 18 years old
during the rehearsals for Karate Kid.
Knowing
no martial arts prior to making the move he was trained by Pat
Johnson, who trained all the actors for their roles in the film. Billy's
training was a harder style, more befitting the 3 times champion of the "All
Valley Tournament".
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Zabka
had to work hard to achieve the look of a Karate champion and so he was
trained by Pat Johnson, a world ranking authority for "four hours a
day, five days a week....sometimes seven days"
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Complementing the training was his fine acting in the role and it can safely
be said that his portrayal of the blonde, blue-eyed Johnny Lawrence was one
of the reasons for the movies success.
Thanks To top KK contributor Jon Hertzberg
we can now reveal a few interesting facets of the blond bad guy and brunette
hero formula. It seems that according to an article
entitled "Blond and Bad; The Advent of the Preppie As Screen Villain"
printed in The Washington Post (September 2, 1984), John Avildsen, who directed
Karate Kid, deliberately chose the 'blue-eyed and blond' preppie look of the
Cobras to be part of the new generation of anti-heroes where the "have's"
are the bad guys and the "have not's" are the heroes. This reversal
of the typical hero, according to the article, was a theme that was repeatedly
used in the movies of the early 80's, with other movies like "Revenge of
the Nerds" portraying the blond and beautiful as bad guys.
In stark contrast to Macchio's dark latin looks, Zabka descibed himself as being
the boy-next-door in 20 commercials. "I have a, you know, real innocent California
look."
And this look extended throughout the Cobras. They're all blonds, right down
to Chad McQueen's peroxided roots. Avildsen wanted a contrast with "Karate Kid"
hero Ralph Macchio's dark visage. "We bleached his [Chad McQueens] hair just
to continue the look." Avildsen's characterizations, in fact, show how dramatically
champions have changed. In Avildsen's "Rocky," the Italian Stallion took on
the black champ Apollo Creed. And now, about a decade later, a heroic Italian
boy fights off a WASP opponent in what Avildsen has called "The Ka-rocky Kid."
Zabka describes his character as "very rich, has a really nice cycle. He comes
from a very chichi family in the Hills. They, the gang, aren't sleazy types,
but they're really screwed up." He recalls how he and the other young actors
got motivated by talking over their make-believe parents' neuroses, alcoholism
and drug abuse.
"I
learned more from this picture than I could ever learn from an acting class.
Morita taught me an awful lot, as, of course, did John (Avildsen), who had
such a good perspective on Johnny, my character, that even when I lost it,
he still had it."
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Billy (as he prefers to be known) went on to play supporting roles in quite
a few movies during the 80's and 90's including another martial arts movie,
The Power Within in 1995 as well as National Lampoon's European Vacation
in 1985 and briefly reprising his role as Lawrence in the Karate Kid II
sequel in 1986.
Real life interests include surfing and back-packing. His favourite actor and
someone he would love to work with is Sean Penn.
He also took the very unusual and admirable step of making the effort to write
to Peter English, webmaster of the Karate
Kid Homepage with some
of his memories from the making of the movie. Along with everyone else,
This author is hoping that he may, one day, find the time to add to his memories
and give us some more interesting insights behind the scenes.
Fact
File: Martin Kove Born
March 6th, 1946, Brooklyn, New York
Doing an excellent job of playing the Sensei of the Cobra Kai dojo is Martin
Kove. The character of Sensei John Kreese is portrayed by
Martin with
admirable depth which belies the characters comic book dialogue and seems to
authenticate the cliché Vietnam vet backstory he was straddled with.
Martin, of course is no newcomer to acting, his career having started in the
early 70's with such notable (!) low budget flicks Last House on the Left
in 1972 and the character of "Nero the Hero" in Death Race 2000
(1975).
Also during the 70's he appeared in a veritable 'who's-who' of episodic TV including
The Streets Of San Francisco, Starsky and Hutch, The Rockford Files
and Charlie's Angels before Starring as "Detective Victor Isbecki"
for six years in Cagney & Lacey. He also had appeared in a number
of stage plays.
Martin definitely seemed to be enjoying playing the charismatic Kreese and went
on to reprise the role in the two sequels. In the meantime he played similar
'grizzly' army type roles in several movies, among them Rambo: First Blood
part II in 1985.
Martin
has kept busy all through the 90's, appearing in over 34 feature films and making
appearances in more than 5 TV series. I suspect many will remember him though,
as the harsh but strangely honourable disciplinarian from the original Karate
Kid movie.
Fact
File: Randee
Heller Born ?
Also
providing a very credible acting performance is Randee Heller as Daniel's mom.
In this authors opinion Randee plays one of the most convincing on screen mom's
in Hollywood history. Particularly convincing dialogue was provided by the writer
Robert Kamen which enabled Randee to do and say all the
annoyingly 'mom-ish' things that all real mom's do.
"As
for Daniel's mother, I've know a thousand women like her, who get one dirty
deal after another but are always hoping the sun will come out next time.''
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Having appeared on Broadway in a number of productions, the most successful
being Grease and Godspell, Randee made the move to California
in 1978 and cut her teeth in episodic TV in such shows as Husbands, Wives
& Lovers playing the character of "Rita DeLatorre" and
the hugely popular "soap". In 1979 she found herself in the
movie Fast Break which was a notable "underdogs overcoming adversity"
type of movie with well written characters. -In that respect, not unlike the
Karate Kid movie that was to serve as her second major feature production -After
a couple of made for TV movies in the early 80's.
Although not prolific, Randee has continued to work on feature films throughout
the 80's and 90's as well as also briefly reprising her role as Daniel's mother
in Karate Kid III (1989).
Fact
File:Chad
McQueen Born December
28, 1960, Los Angeles, California
Making
his acting debut as "Dutch", one of the more memorable Cobra Kai henchmen
was Chad McQueen, son of acting legend Steve McQueen and Neile Adams.
Chad was 23 at the time of the production and had been working around Hollywood
since the late 70's in such roles as production assistant on a number of movies
but the Karate Kid was his first 'real' acting job and being the son of a superstar
acting legend cannot have made it any easier. As you may have read in William
Zabka's bio, above, Chad's hair was deliberately dyed blond to make him match
with the 'rich blond preppie' look.
His evil, mocking characterisation of Dutch is utterly convincing and easily
worthy of his heritage so its a little suprising (and doubtless a little unlucky
too) that he didn't find himself in more big budget, high profile roles as the
80's progressed.
Instead he was limited almost entirely to playing lead roles in second (or third)
rate fare that quickly wound up on cable TV, working steadily and knocking out
more than 20 roles in the following 10 years, during which he married and later
divorced Stacy Toten.
In 1996, he both produced and starred in
the movie "Red Line"
where he played the role of a stunt driver named "Jim" for which he
is also credited as doing his own stunt driving work.
This lead to a second production deal with "Papertrail" in 1997 and
to Chad's latest actor/producer deal with "Fall" which is scheduled
for release in 2000.
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