Dolph Lundgren

Stockholm, Sweden

Biography

Hans "Dolph" Lundgren (/ˈlʌndɡrən/, Swedish: [ˈdɔlːf ˈlɵ̌nːdɡreːn]; born 3 November 1957) is a Swedish-American actor, filmmaker, and martial artist. Born in Spånga, a community in Stockholm County, Sweden, Lundgren became interested in martial arts at a young age. This would lead him to hold the rank of 4th dan black belt in Kyokushin karate and become European champion in 1980 and 1981. In 1982, while studying to get a master's degree, he became the boyfriend of singer Grace Jones. He moved to New York City with her and started taking acting classes. In 1985, Lundgren had a breakthrough role playing the lead villain as an imposing Soviet boxer named Ivan Drago in Sylvester Stallone's Rocky IV. Lundgren went on to play lead roles in over 80 action-orientated films, including Masters of the Universe (1987), Red Scorpion (1988), The Punisher (1989), I Come in Peace (1990), Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991), Joshua Tree (1993), Men of War (1994), Silent Trigger (1996), and Blackjack (1998). He continued playing lead villains in Universal Soldier (1992) against Jean-Claude Van Damme and Johnny Mnemonic (1995) against Keanu Reeves. Moving into the 2000s, Lundgren mostly appeared in direct-to-video films. During this time, Lundgren started directing and starring in his own films; these are The Defender (2004), The Mechanik (2005), Missionary Man (2007), Command Performance (2009), Icarus (2010), Castle Falls ((2021),and Wanted Man (2024). Lundgren returned to prominence in 2010 with the role of Gunner Jensen in Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables alongside an all-action star cast. He reprised his role in its sequels. He returned to the role of Ivan Drago in Creed II (2018). He also had notable roles in the fifth season of Arrow (2017), James Wan's Aquaman (2018), and Kyle Balda's Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022). Description above from the Wikipedia article Dolph Lundgren, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Movies

The Dame Edna Experience is a British television comedy talk-show hosted by Dame Edna Everage. It ran for twelve regular episodes on ITV, plus two Christmas specials. The first seven aired for the first time in 1987, the next seven in 1989. It was directed by Ian Hamilton and Alasdair MacMillan and produced by London Weekend Television. Regulars on the program, besides Dame Edna, were her "bridesmaid" Madge Allsop and Robin Houston who was the announcer, with orchestra conducted and arranged by Laurie Holloway. Each program featured several celebrity guests, usually three, but some programs included up to eight guests. There would also be other invited "guests" like Kurt Waldheim and Imelda Marcos who once introduced at stage right would fall victim to a trap door or something similar and fail to make it to their chair. The entire series was released on DVD by BBC Video in June 2004, and can now also be purchased as a complete set including the Christmas specials and the three An Audience with Dame Edna specials, plus other material. The series was released for Region 2 by Network DVD in the UK in 2007, as a 4-disc set. For reasons unknown, the Region 2 release does not include the 1989 Christmas special "The Dame Edna Satellite Experience" that ended the second series and featured Ursula Andress, Yehudi Menuhin, and Robert Kilroy-Silk. It does, however, include the one-off 1990 Christmas special A Night On Mount Edna with guests Mel Gibson, Charlton Heston, Gina Lollobrigida and Julio Iglesias.

More info
The Dame Edna Experience
1987