Dolph Lundgren: Biography, Career, Personal Life

2024 Author: Mabel Warren | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 16:20

Swedish actor, director, screenwriter, producer, martial artist, famous for his role as a Soviet soldier in Rocky IV. He is also known for his roles in Hollywood action films "The Expendables", "Showdown in Little Tokyo", "View of the Murder", etc. all this is about the talented person Dolph Lundgren.

The Swedish athlete, actor, director and producer Dolph Lundgren was born on November 3, 1957.

Childhood

In Sweden, not far from Stockholm, there is a small town of Spagma, in this small and cozy place on November 3, 1957, a son was born into an ordinary family. The boy was named Hans (this name was given to Dolph Lundgren at birth). The family was middle class, dad Lundgren Karl worked in the Swedish government in the economic sphere, although in his youth he received an engineering education, mother Brigitte worked as a teacher of foreign languages at school. Dolph was the first child, then three more children appeared in the family - daughters Annika and Katarina and son Johan.

Little Dolph grew up as a weak child, had a lot of illnesses, had a chronic runny nose, and also suffered from allergies. Dolph never even thought about a sports or acting future, he studied excellently and was going to become a chemical engineer like his dad.

The father was a strict man, even, one might say, unkind, often he took out all his anger on his wife and son, sometimes it even came to beatings. When quarrels arose, Karl often called Dolph a "loser." It was this that became the strongest motivation in Dolph Lundgren's decision to go in for sports, he really wanted to prove to his father that he was deeply mistaken in calling his son names.

Despite his frail appearance, which the boy was shy about and had complexes about this, Dolph began to go to the gym with exercise equipment and gave preference to contact sports. To begin with, he tested himself in judo, then practiced goju-ryu karate, the final choice fell on Kyokushin (one of the toughest types in contact karate), which Lundgren began to practice with great obsession.

Sport

In 1977, Dolph won the Swedish karate championship, a title he then did not give to anyone for three years.

In 1979, Dolph competed in the World Championship. By that time, he only possessed a green belt. To participate in the world championship, at least brown was needed. During the recording of the athletes, Dolph asked for a loan from his comrades for a brown belt and thus slightly exaggerated his degree of martial skill. Having knocked out two opponents, Lundgren hit a karateka with experience Nakamura Makota from Japan, he was the favorite of the championship, he had a black belt, in weight outnumbered the Swedish athlete by as much as 17 kg. The fight was tough, Makota used dirty tricks many times, and only in the added round was the Japanese awarded the victory. Makota, who eventually became the winner of the entire championship, later admitted that in a duel with Lundgren it was especially difficult for him. Dolph was quite happy with the way he performed, despite his loss to his Japanese rival. After the world tournament, Dolph led the Swedish national karate team, now he was the captain of the karate team. Dolph received his most significant title in his entire sports career in 1980, when he won the British Open, a year later he received the same title again.

Education and military service

After graduating from the school program, Dolph went to study in America. There he studied chemistry at Clemson University in South Carolina. However, he soon had to return to his homeland to do military service in the Swedish army. Immediately, Lundgren was assigned to the center, where the special forces of the Swedish fleet were trained.

After training at the center, in 1979, Lundgren went to serve in the 1st Swedish Marine Regiment. He got a unit - submarine sabotage forces and assets. Lundgren did not succeed in serving the entire term, he was seriously injured, this became an obstacle to further service. With the rank of corporal, Dolph went ashore and again ended up at the Special Forces training center. For health reasons, he was not commissioned and served the entire due time.

After the army, she studied in Stockholm at the Royal Institute of Technology, receiving a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. This was followed by graduation from a master's degree in the same field, but already at the University of Sydney. In 1983, Dolph became a Fellow of a special program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which opened all the way for him to the title of Doctor of Chemistry. But that never happened. Instead of Boston, where the institute was located, Lundgren came to New York.

Films

Dolph Lundgren's debut in the cinema was a small episode in the next James Bond film "View of the Murder", where the young actor played the bodyguard of a KGB general. Then the aspiring film actor sent out portfolios for a long time to different studios, but received rejections due to his high growth. Nevertheless, having correctly weighed the pros and cons, Dolph does a photo shoot in the form of a boxer and gets the role of the negative hero - the Soviet athlete Ivan Drago in the movie "Rocky IV" with Sylvester Stallone. This role of critics will be called the first breakthrough in the creative biography of Lundgren in cinema.

The actor got the main role two years later in the film "Masters of the Universe", based on comics. The film flopped at the box office, as did The Red Scorpion, in which Lundgren again played a Russian. The next films "The Punisher" and "The Angel of Darkness" were also received very coolly. Critics called Lundgren an actor of one role, they said that acting talent is significantly inferior to the showiness of muscles. Action roles become central to the Hollywood actor's career, but Dolph continues to play strong guys, although he chooses scenarios with deeper dialogues. The most famous films of that period were the 1991 films Showdown in Little Tokyo, in which Lundgren plays a police officer fighting against the Japanese mafia, and 1992's Universal Soldier, in which Jean-Claude Van Damme became his partner. Dolph plays the sadistic American soldier Andrew Scott. Experts continued to mercilessly criticize the actor's skill, but these films were a great commercial success.

Then Lundgren's career began to decline, and they practically stopped writing about him in the specialized press. During the period of the 90s and "noughties" critics single out only a few films that, despite their commercial failure, are still worth watching. First of all, this is the cyberpunk Johnny Mnemonic of 1995, in which a jock actor plays the role of a street preacher. Also highlighted are the crime thriller "Joshua Tree", the thriller "The Peacemaker" and the war drama "Diamond Dogs". And to prepare for the film Deadly Pentathlon: Pentathlon With Death, also released under the title Champion, Dolph Lundgren became the captain of the US Olympic pentathlon team and competed with the team at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

In 2004, the American-Canadian action movie "Go ahead" was also remembered by the audience. In this film, the actor played the police officer Frank Gannon, for whom the last days in the service became a real test.

Personal life

Several stellar romances are associated with the name of Dolph Lundgren. First of all, the famous relationship with the actress of Jamaican origin Grace Jones, who pushed the actor into the world of show business. Dolph dated fashion models Paula Barbieri, Janice Dickinson and Stephanie Adams, as well as actresses Samantha Phillips and Leslie Ann Woodward.

In 1990, the actor began dating his compatriot Anette Quiberg, a jewelry designer. Dolph and Annette got married in 1994. In this marriage, the couple had daughters Ida Sigrid and Greta Evelyn. Dolph and Anette lived in Spain, as they wanted to save their children from the temptations of Hollywood, but in 2011 the marriage broke up.

The actor knows many foreign languages. Dolph Lundgren is fluent in Swedish, English and Spanish.