Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

A basketball giant

Born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. on 16 April 1947 in Harlem, New York, he stands 7 ft 2 in. At UCLA he won three straight national titles (1967, 1968, 1969). He converted to Sunni Islam in 1968 and took the name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, using it publicly from 1971. He won the 1971 NBA title with the Milwaukee Bucks and five more with the Lakers between 1980 and 1988, was a six-time MVP and held the NBA career scoring record (38,387 points) from 1984 to 2023, built on his unblockable skyhook.

From aikido to Jeet Kune Do

He started aikido in New York in 1967. In spring 1968 he visited the Black Belt magazine offices in Los Angeles looking for a tai chi teacher; publisher Mito Uyehara pointed him to Bruce Lee. They trained in Lee's backyard, usually on Tuesdays in the off-season: footwork, the wooden dummy, bag work, kicks and sparring. Against someone so tall, Wing Chun's chi sao was of little use, so Lee adapted; Abdul-Jabbar described himself as a drawing board for Lee's ideas. He credits that training with a 20-season NBA career with relatively few injuries.

Game of Death

In 1972 Lee brought him to Hong Kong to shoot a fight for his Game of Death project. Abdul-Jabbar plays Hakim, guardian of the top floor of a pagoda that the hero, in his yellow tracksuit, climbs by beating one opponent per level. Lee has to find a way to reach a man who towers over him and keeps him at bay with long arms and legs. Lee died in July 1973 with the film unfinished; Robert Clouse completed it with a double and released a reworked version in 1978 that keeps the duel.

Actor and keeper of the memory

His best-known role is Roger Murdock, the Airplane! (1980) co-pilot who insists he is not Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. A prolific author and 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, he wrote a 2019 Hollywood Reporter column criticising Lee's portrayal in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, recalling that his teacher turned down challenges because he had nothing to prove.