Rest in peace, Black Belt Jones

He left an indelible mark on martial arts and blaxploitation cinema.
Jim Kelly

Twitch is reporting that Jim Kelly, best known for his role as Williams in Enter The Dragon and as Black Belt Jones in the movie of the same name, has died at the age of 67. Kelly only starred in a handful of roles, and he later left the film industry behind for the most part — he became tired of the quality of scripts that came his way — to become a tennis coach. Even so, he left an indelible mark on martial arts and blaxploitation cinema.

I’ve embedded some of Kelly’s classic scenes from Black Belt Jones and Enter The Dragon below.

Several other tributes to Kelly have appeared online, including this one, this one, and this one.

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