Billy Blanks

Billy Blanks, a fitness master, an actor and a martial art professional, came to life on September 1st, 1955. Billy was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, U.S and is a Native American. Billy was born to his parents who had 15 children and he was 4th out of the 15 children. Billy had a problem in the hip bone since his birth and could not perform his daily tasks properly because of that. He was often made fun of because of this deformity and this motivated Billy to do something big in life. He started with the Karate classes, when he was just 11 years of age and subsequently developed an interest in the fitness training. He was much motivated by his inspiration, Bruce Lee. Billy went on to marry his first wife Gayle H. Godfrey, who was his colleague in one of his karate class and they both had a strong relation for 33 years. The couple has two children, a daughter named Shellie Blanks and a son named Billy Blanks Jr. Both his daughter and son are fitness trainers by profession and have appeared with Billy in many of his fitness training programs and shows. After a long relation, both Billy and Gayle filed for a divorce in 2007 because of some differences. Later on Blanks married his second wife ‘Tomoko Sato’ in 2009 and Tomoko is Japanese by nationality. Both of them have a daughter named Angelika and Blanks is also a stepfather to Tomoko’s daughters Marriet and Erika.

According to his biography, Billy started his career as a Bodyguard to an actress in US. However during one of her movies, the producer of the movie was very much inspired and attracted to the life story of Billy and decided to make a movie on the life of Billy. Billy started his movie career with a film named ‘Low Blow’ and later went on to act in many movies. He primarily acted a martial arts trainer or related roles in the popular movies like ‘King of the Kickboxers’ and ‘Bloodfist’. Billy came to fame with his role in the movie ‘The Last Boy Scout’ in which his scenes were very much appreciated by the critics and the audiences. Later on also Billy continued his acting and went on to act in close to around 25 movies with his role appreciated throughout his acting career. Billy has also acted in TV shows like ‘The Parkers’ and ‘The Fairly Odd Parents’. Billy is also known to come up with his own new style ‘Tae Bo’ which is a mix of Karate, Boxing and Martial arts. He has taken up classes for Tae Bo at various places.

Billy is known to have earned a lot of wealth during his professional career both from movies he has acted in and from his training programs on Tae Bo. His total net worth at present is estimated to be around $30 Million and this net worth is projected to increase in future as well because of his continued training programs of Tae Bo and his other associated programs.

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