Hey, everybody, this is Life is a Gamble Episode number five. My
guest today is Don the Dragon Wilson, and I am going to jump into
this right away because we have a lot to talk about. So Don,
welcome to Life as a Gamble. Thank you for inviting me to speak to
your audience, and I'm looking forward to the interview. Great. So before
we get into where I want to go, which was a very big risk
in your life, I just want for the audience that is not familiar.
Is it fair to say you were the Michael Jordan of kickboxing? What?
One of them? One of them? I didn't deny that that I was
one of the top guys in my day. Yeah, so, but let's
just kind of say who you were. You held the title in four weight
classes or five weight classes, four weight classes, but in five different sanctioning
bodies. Yes, right, correct, So, and you held the title
for ten years eleven ten years for the light of the weight title, which
is the one I really my main concentration was the w K light anyweight world
title that I consider Now. I did win other ones, but they were
never goals. They were just just because the associations sanctioned the fight of the
title fight, I won another title, but I never even defended them.
I just relinguished them. Part of that was there weren't There wasn't anybody left
in your white weight class to beat, right. Look, I fought the
top guys, beating the champion. You can't duck the number one to ten
once a year. You gotta fight them, Okay, So for the WK
title for ten years, I held it well, I thought the number one
and several other top ten fighters those twelve those ten years, and none of
them beat me. I never lost a title in the ring. I relinquished
titles and I gave them up, and I did that retire them, or
however you want to put it. But I did not lose. It's a
world title after winning one being granted one in the ring. And another thing
which seems crazy to me is you went to Hong Kong and fought for the
Mui Tie title, which was not Which is different kicking. Generically we called
the sport kickboxing, but there's a form of the sport started nineteen seventy four
in America called full contact karate. Now that is punching and kicking, but
no kicking below the weights. So if you were the champion of that.
That's great, and you know, I have nothing against them. But in
the Orient, they all keep the leg so they don't even respect that stylid
fighting. Full contact karate is what they called it, and this is when
I first started in nineteen seventy four. So I wanted to fight under all
the styles, and the three main ones were full contact karadas. I said,
only kicking above the ways. Then Japanese scott kickboxing, where you have
the leg kicks and you can use knees, but you can't hold the head.
Then you have tie boxing, where you can use elbows, knees,
you kick the whole body, you fight barefoot. It's the most realistic style
of kickboxing. Would be muid time and I liked it. I enjoyed it.
I did while I fought every fight that I was offered. But but
you know, when you start beating the Tide, they quit offering you fight
because they don't like foreigners. It's like we're the super Bowl champions, right,
and then you get a team from some other country co comes over and
beats the super Bowl champion. You don't want that happening, and the Tides
didn't. They didn't allow any of their fighters to fight me after nineteen eighty
four. September of eighty four, I fought fourth rated fighter in Hong Kong
and I broke his leg, beat him and that was the last TIPE fight
I was ever off have September of eighty four. Yeah. Wow. Now,
Also when MMA came about, you were one of the announcers. I
was waiting before him. I was in the original UFC that different owners came
and they brought in Joe Rogan. You know, he was good, he
was good. He was the martial artist. I met the guy, very
nice guy, very well informed, opinionated, interesting, entertaining announcement. Right,
But I know that when because this is around the time that I met
you. Well, it was after when I met you and you were chomping
at the bit. Oh I was trying to fight. Yeah, but Richard,
this is nineteen ninety, but you weren't how old at that time.
I've got to fight scheduled right now in Dubai, right now, I'm already
trying to contract. Now that call it exhibition. Now, wait, you're
sixty eight right now? Right, that's a close estimation. Yes, I'm
sixty eight. If I'm at sixty eight. I would love to get in
the ring. What do you think I felt like back in the nineties.
Of course I would have taken a fight with Hoyce Gracie, but they wouldn't
promote it because he was beating all the guys and they didn't want some of
you come from the outside and just win the thing. But what ended up
happening is Murray Smith, a kickboxer, end up winning the world the UFC
title heavyweight title. And yeah, kickboxers became pretty and wrestlers, grapplers,
you know, jiu jitsu guys, and they kind of like dominated the UFC
at different times. At different times, you know it Evan flows. You
know, sometimes the strikers get on top and they become champions, sometimes the
grapplers. And you had a wrestling background in school, right, Yes,
I was. Of all the sports I did, and I was the MVP
of my high school football team and the MVP of the basketball team. Lap
Of all the sports they did, though, the sport the fastest and the
easiest was wrestling. I went out for wrestling as a college stude. I
never wrestled in high school, and they said the athlete versus son that's impossible.
No one, no athlete ever starts the sport at the collegian level.
Like your first day on a wrestling Matt is in college, which for me
and I go, look, I'm an athlete. I can learn to wrestling.
Just let me go on the mat out and he gives me a scholarship.
I'll learn, and he said, okay, there's one hundred and ninety
poundands. So I get in there and I'm wrestling with Then of course the
guy is I didn't even know the rules. Really, I didn't even ruin
the wrestling, but I knew this. Whatever he tried to do to me,
I knew. I resisted, And the athletic director and the wrestling coach
at this college I was going to, said, you know, he's got
a little potential. Let's put him on a one week trial period. I
think it was one week. It might have been too regardless, in a
few days they said, no, give him a full scholarship. Wow.
And my second year wrestling for that, I took fourth and state of Florida
at one seventy seven. Now I went from no. No wrestling to fourth
the state. And that's against all the schools. Richard I was going to
a junior college, so it's only first two years. But we wrestled University
of Florida, University of Miami, Florida State University. We wrestled the big
guy, and yeah, I kicked to that sport the fast. Although kickboxing
was I had to learn how to box. I could kick. I was
always a big kicker. But and I still work. I go to the
boxing gym. I don't go to our mortial arts school. I go to
the boxing gym when I trained, And yeah, I still work my hands
because you know, if that's your weak spot, that's what you need to
concentrate on. Right. And my punching was a weak part of my fighting
abilities. I could have really really done well in the M and A.
I believe, Yeah, if that the sport I was born to do because
with the grappling, you know, the submission. So many things that I
was good at I couldn't use as a striker. Like strength doesn't matter as
much as to me anyway a striker, as strength does to a grap that's
a good advantage to have on somebody, to be stronger than that if you're
trying to manipulate their bodies on the ground. If you're trying to strike them,
sometimes that added weight on your arms and your back and slows you down.
As a striker, you're gonna be getting hit more because the other guy's
lean faster. For me, the advantage that the sport that I would have
the most advantage would be emma and I never did one competition. Unfortunately it
came out did So. What I really wanted to talk to you about,
though, is here you are. You're this world champion and you decide to
chuck it all and head to LA and be an actor. Well, we
can blame all that on Chuck Norris. Okay, Chuck and I became friends.
I believe this nineteen eighty was the date of the fight, as nineteen
eighty. I met him that he came to one of my fighters, and
after the fight we went to his hotel room and I talked to them and
he said, don I was a fighter. Bruceley called me up and asked
me if I do a fight in a movie, So he said, I
wasn't making a big career of movement. I did it and people thought I
looked good, and I got other offers to hear in a movie, so
I started acting and he said it turned up me a great second career for
him. He went from fighting to acting. Now, of all the actors
that do fighting, him, Chuck and I have the same background. We
were known worldwide as fighters before we did our first line of dialogue. Now,
all the other guys and I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm
saying Van Damn Sigal Jeff speaks when any other martial artists, if they had
never done a movie, we wouldn't be talking about it because they did nothing
as fighters. They were not the top fighters. The reason Chuck got offered
to Bruceley movie is he was known to be the best fighter in the world
in his day, and that's why Bruceley wanted to beat him up in a
movie. For me, it was a just talking a situation. I was
known to be one of the best fighters of my day, and then I
went to the movies and then not the way that's not the normal. Chuck
and I are aberrations, not the way it normally happens. Get a guy
like Van Damn who's skillful, looks apart and he can act talented, but
he was not a like me and Chuck. He was not a famous fighter
before he became an actor. Right, but when you went to LA you
didn't have any offer or anything, Right, you just picked up and moved
there. And and what was your plan? It was a big damn yeah,
I would say, but Chuck suggested it, so look he should know,
right, I mean other people hadn't suggested it before. But I never
paid attention to him, because what do they know about the film business.
Chuck Norris didn't go from fighter to movie start yet. I don't want to
be called just an actor, not just an actor, but an actor,
because I don't consider myself an actor. I'm a movie star, which is
people will pay to see me in martial art action movies, but I doubt
if they would pay to see me in the romantic comedies or many other genres
of films and that and producers understand that, and they don't cast me in
I'm not casting those kind of films. I'm basically martial art action star.
I have a genre loyal fan base. Yeah, I can say this.
When it comes time to throw the punching in the kicken, Robert de Niro
can sit down and just take a break, and then I'll do that myself.
You know when it comes to that, I'm well qualified to do the
fight scenes fight actions, and my fight scenes are not the acrobatic kind of
backflips and the split like Van Dam will do. No, I don't do
that. I do the more practical stuff. Luckily, the choreographers, though,
allow in my movies, allow the other martial arts to show off their
best talents and mean Garry Daniels looked great from Ring of Fire, right,
yeah, yeah, all of them. Eric let me look great. Here's
a comedy comic relate for him. Yeah, But so so everybody can grow,
they'll style what happened when you got to La. Well, I got
to La. Nobody knows me, right, I did not know anything about
some business. So I had some friends that were martial arts, and they
said, well, there's this bookstore you can go to called Samuel French,
and you go there and they got a lot of books on how to be
an actor. And so I go to the bookstore. I go to the
bookstorem Now I'm staying in a holiday inn in Glendale, California. I'd buy
it like five or six books on how to be an act shows you how
to get ahead shot and how to build your resume, and how to find
an agent? Had an audition and the droll in acting classes. It shows
you it just literally every human activity there are books about how to do.
Like if you want to be a carpenter, there's books to say, how
to be a carpent. Oh yeah, how to pick the right wood and
measure it and okay. So I got the books on how to be an
actor, and I just did what they said, Richard. Within three months,
I was on General Hospital as a bad guy working. I was a
It was a section of the story arc on General Hall or where they had
it called the Asian Quarter. That's where I met Steve Lee, who you
know and we've been friends. So I seem a working at just from after
moving out to La getting an agent, reading the books, doing what the
books say. How do you get the agent? You just called him sitting
in the head chairs what the books said? The book said, the way
to get an agent is this. Find an agent. It's got a client
like you that he's making money on, and that guy's more likely to take
you. So there was one Asian in all of Hollywood in nineteen eighty five,
starring in marsha Art movie. His name was Shoka Sui, and Shoka
Suvi was like me, six foot tall, a Japanese did ninja movies for
a company called Kannon Films, which is a company Chuck was working for Tannon.
So I went to Choka Suvi's agent and I said, hey, my
name is Don Wilson. I know you. You represent Chovasubi. But I
said, I'm not trying to replace him. I just said that, you
know, maybe you could use another Asian. And he said, come on,
I'll talk to you about it. So I go in and now he's
just passed away by the way. He passed away a year ago. Ray,
but Reddy looked at me and Ray, he said to me later,
he said, there are many roles that show Gasuit gets offered good money rolls,
but show doesn't want to do them. He looks at it. It's
below him. So Ray said to me, gone, I'll send you out
for all the roles and shows turns down because they're looking for a six foot
tall Japanese guy because they want show. He said, would you mind that?
I said, oh, absolutely. So the first one I got was
a commercial for a Chinese first soy sauce and it was LaTroy Foods LATROI,
which I believe it's Chinese food. But they had a soy sauce coming up
and I did it and I worked one day and they said we're talking nineteen
eighty five and I made ten thousand dollars. Wow, it took me,
not would one day, like a half a day to shoot this commercial.
And oddly enough, because my life is one series of odd coinstances, it
was my character was the leader of the dragon squad. Yeah, so I
had a draft fake dragon tattoo on my chest and I make a mean face
and uh yeah, I don't know if you can google, but maybe it's
on YouTube, right. I think at one time it was it was Le
Choice soy sauce. But anyway, so what happened was I told Ray I
was started going out for auditions. The show looked down on the roles.
He didn't want to even auditions, I told Ray. And the roles were
like this, which was they were not starring six foot tall Asians and stubborn
access in movie. So it would be like a Chinese waiter who drops a
bowl of rice, picks it up and it runs out, and it would
be those kind of roles day player roles, not action stars, not starring
in movie. So I told Ray, and this was maybe probably our first
six months work as the Ray. Unless it's the starring role and it's a
March large film, I'd rather not even audition because I'm not out here to
be an actor. I don't want to just play, you know, all
kinds of different roles or where like most actors. I said, I want
to be an action stars. So now the contact between me and Ray where
it's like zero because I told him I didn't want to audition for this other
stuff, and there's nothing else out there for you, so the nothing's coming
in. I'm getting no office. And then one day I come home and
you know, we had answering machines puck in those days. You push your
answering machine and says, hello, if you are the Don Wilson, the
chick poxing Champion, my name is Roger Corman, and i'd like you to
I'm producing a marshal Off. Look, I'd like you to come in and
read of the lead of the movie. And I thought, well, I
am the Don Wilson, that's the kickboxer. So I got head, the
addressed and everything, and I go over there, and as soon as I
get to the office in Brentwood, the casting richer looks at me says,
oh, this Toilson, I'm sorry, we didn't realize you were a Pasian.
He said, this is about Caucasian lead and the brothers already been cast.
He goes, I'm sorry you were called out. He said, I
don't want you to have wasted your time. So he said, let you
come in and just read it. Maybe you could be one of the bad
guys, which now I know it is courtesy read because Richard if Roger Corman
wants a bad guy who looks like me. There's many of them in the
Philippines. He's not gonna fly them to the Philippines put him in a hotel
room to be's a bad guy. No, that was a courtesy read.
He just wanted me to say. Now you know you memorize the line he
can, so he read me I read for the casting grid, the courtesy
read, and he looks at me and he doesn't say anything. He goes,
I'll be right back to excuse me. He leaves his office and I'm
sitting in the casting office and I'm waiting. There's a bunch of big line
of martial artists, all guys I knew because they were legitimate world champions,
but all Caucasians. Yeah, they were all Caucasian. The casting garden comes,
says, Roger Corman wants to me. Now, Luckily for me,
Richard, I had no idea who Roger Corman was. But because it said
Joe Smith, I wasn't not the difference I need it. I didn't know
he had started all these careers because that would have added another level of nervousness
to my audition, right, I mean, So I go in there and
meet him, and he says, done, I'm visure Frank Rovis Corn.
You know, tell me about yourself. And I told him my backstory of
my training and how I got the idea to try to be an actor from
Chuck Norris and that's why I'm out in the Hollywood. So he says,
would you read for him? And so the casting director He's playing the bad
guy and I'm playing my character, the good guy. I get about I
wish I even remembered that. You know this, we're talking nineteen eightien.
I get out about four lines, which about four lines, and he stops
me. Now, I know as an actor. When you get stopped after
that, that means don't let the door hit your butt on the way out.
You know, you've blown it so bad. He said, Oh my
god, he guys got it. Yeah, but that's not Roger Corman to
Roger stopped me at the four lines. He had seen enough. He cast
me on the spot, handed me the script, said you leave in two
weeks you start of the movie. And he said to me, He said
to me, done, You're gonna do martial art. Me. Wow,
wow. Later in your life, you're gonna do action as you're doing an
action star. And I'm looking at him and I don't know who he is.
He goes. He goes, much much later, you're gonna be a
famous dramatic actor, and Hug, we're around the world because you're gonna be
a famous So I didn't know who he was. So I'm just thinking,
yeah, what do you want to do? Invest in the movie or something.
You know. He's telling me I'm gonna be a movie star. And
I got four lines out of this scene. So I go immediately to I
was living every yells then, but don't think I had money because I was
living in what we call the ghettos, which is the apartment compan I had
an apartment, and really is but they still are great apartments and it was
still nice place to live. But anyway, so I go to the guy
named Barry Newman, who's an actor living there with me, very very experienced
New York actor, and he said, I heard you had an audition.
I said, yeah. The guy told me after the audition, I'm gonna
be a big movie Starry, because he did. He starts laughing. He
goes, what was the guy's name? And I said Roger Corman? Because
Roger Corman told you you're going to become a famous movie So I said yeah.
He said, come in here, come into my apartment, and then
he sat me down and explained to me who Roger Corman. Wow, Now,
thank goodness, Richard. I did not know who he was because I
would have been so nervous because he is a guy I believe, Richard,
and I don't know for a fact. I believe I am the last actor
in Hollywood to go through what was called the studio system, where a non
actor gets met by a producer. The producer turns him into a star by
hiring acting coaches. Roger got me yet first of all, he putting me
on a weekly salary of four thousand a week. Wow. Immediately after leaving
his office, I got, yeah, well, you know that was a
weekly salary. But that was what they did in the studio system. They
gave actors like Steve McQueen weekly salary. Yeah, And Roger said, done,
you could work for other companies. I only asked you for one thing,
showing your contracts, and I'll tell you whether or not I think it's
a good idea, because I said, he said, whatever you do outside
my company's going to affect my movies with you, and I intend to do
a lot. I did twelve movies with Roger. By the way, Richard,
more than any actor in the history of the film that's flow was Roger
twelve. Well that's because Roger used to say, if you do a good
job with me on this movie, right right? You know what I want
to mention something about when you were talking about roles for Asian actors in Hollywood,
Well, Sean Dan told me that that shot. Dan said, they
don't write them for doctor for people like you. Right. So, when
we were doing Ring of Fire and I was auditioning people, all these Asian
actors were showing up that I did not call in like nobody had called these
guys and people hear the great mind though there is a great vine in Hollywood
word of nowt worm. Well, so what happened was I said that to
one of the guys. I was like, how did you find out about
this? And he says, are you kidding me? We heard that there
is a movie where the lead is an Asian doctor who's got a white girlfriend.
He says, every Asian actor in town knows about this movie. I
found that out later as well. Yeah, I found that out, lad
Well, how unusual it was. Yeah, it was a different time,
you know, to start. Yeah, we look I was doing when Joe
came to me in anemy descript, I was doing a movie called Force the
Fight where there's no female lead, there's no beautiful scenery. It's in a
prison. He was depressing that, you know what, when you go in
there, you're in the director you gotta sit in a cell for twelve hours,
just like if you were in the prison. And it's not a happy
anyway. It was not a wonderfully fun experience to do it in prison movie.
And the very next one is bringing Fire, which is a love story
for me. Richard, and I say to everybody, you know, you
one of the most talented directors and matter of fact, probably the most talented
directors for that specific type of film that I worked with. It might have
been not fourty years acting eight. Nineteen eighty two was my first film Chinese
movie. So from eighty two to today, I know directors pretty much.
You know, I worked with a lot of them, the ones that I
get along with the ones I don't. But I don't think anybody could have
done a better job than need was ramp Fire. The five scenes came out
great, but not just that a love story was told. A love story
came out. People were I know, there was a few things that happen
to be end like the music left it up and she was maybe gonna die
from the wound or whatever. But I think it came through. You know,
everybody loved the movie, Richard. To this day, I need women
that say, oh, I love that movie Ring of Fire to this day.
This is forty years after thirty years. That's very kind. Yeah,
thirty years after we shot it, people are still watching it. It's considered
a classic now. They call it Marshall just like Blotfist is. Tarantino showed
blood Fist and he asked me to come and answer Jill Q and A after
the screen. But his his theater only shows what he considers the iconic movies
of the sixties whatever and and but this is one of them. He showed
Actually Buck Thiss one and two. He showed book This one and two,
a double feature and at his theater here in La and I went and sat
down and answered questions about the making of it. You know what fills students.
Since I am the guy who worked mostly with Rodger, they really asked
me about Roger because he is he's producer of what three hundred movies, over
three hundred movies, you know. Yeah, if you're gonna get hooked up
with the guy when you first start off your first starring role, that's the
one, right, He's the one. He the guy in the B movies,
that King of the Bees, I think it was his nickname, right,
Like when he's on the dragon, he's the King of the Bees.
So he's not just another Hey, you know what, I think Number two
is Joe Marry Not when I met him, he wasn't the King of anything
when I met him. But he became very successful over movies and ninety nine
percent successful correction and being big bike bombs no, which is the thing.
You know, You know a movie can bomb. No, you don't make
that ten percent twenty percent of the budget. And but that never happened to
my knowledge with PM Entertainment. No. You know, they were in that
action genre and they became the They were like the new King Cannon, you
know, like Cannon Films was doing all the action film, martial art action.
They do the Dude Cough movies, Chuck Norris movies, show Kasubi movies.
The Cannon Films was the big eighties guys. And then I believe Joe
Mary and Robert Corman was a nineties action iconic grecious. Yeah, and I
got to work with both of them. Are you know that's the lucky part
of my my life? You know? Yes, I was a gambler.
I took a chance. I took the money I had and invested it in
a movie career when I knew nothing about movies. It worked for me as
a martial artist. I was working in the nightclub. I was managing a
nightclub, had a great job. Quit my job became a broken fighter with
the dream of being a world champion. I did gamble, right, I
kicked some gamble. That team of your show is is gambling and then not
gambling on the tables because I'm the worst at that. I lost two fight
persons at the you know, after the playoffs. Well, listen, I
want to thank you for doing this. I'm pretty much out of time here,
so this has been great. It's we haven't seen each other in a
long time. It's great to see you, and I really appreciate you doing
this. Yep, we're gonna have to work together again though. Hey,
yeah, I have a recommended which kind of came to me as I was
talking to Don. And for those of you who are not familiar with Roger
Corman, or maybe you are, he wrote a book thirty some years ago
or twenty five years ago called How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and
Never lost a dime. Roger Corman was the King of B movies and just
so many famous people got their start working for him, almost everyone you can
think of. So it's a fascinating book, often very funny. And that
is my recommended. So that's it for this episode. I will see you
all next time. That that that the