James Lew, the veteran stunt performer and coordinator whose martial arts work shaped fight scenes across five decades of American film, died Sunday at 73, a career that stretched from a 1974 episode of ABC's Kung Fu to 2019's Avengers: Endgame.
Lew's wife, Jordana Potter, announced his death on Instagram. No cause of death has been disclosed. Born September 6, 1952, and raised in South Central Los Angeles, Lew began training in martial arts at 14 at a school that combined taekwondo and Tang Soo Do, a path that carried him from neighborhood dojos to some of the biggest action sets in Hollywood history.
His credits read like a catalog of the genre's high points. Lew served as stunt coordinator on John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China in 1986, handled stunts on Carpenter's They Live two years later, and returned for Carpenter's Escape From L.A. in 1996. He performed or coordinated stunts on Black Rain, Showdown in Little Tokyo, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, Lethal Weapon 4, all three Rush Hour films, The Last Samurai, Tropic Thunder, Star Trek, Inception, Olympus Has Fallen, and Avengers: Endgame, The Hollywood Reporter noted.
Lew's screen career started early. In 1974 he played a monk and performed stunts on an episode of ABC's Kung Fu. Two years later he appeared in John Cassavetes' The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. By 1979 he had traveled to Hong Kong to appear in The Young Dragon.
But it was the 1980s and 1990s action boom that put Lew's skills on full display. Beyond his Carpenter collaborations, he portrayed a martial arts instructor opposite Carl Weathers in 1988's Action Jackson and played a deadly killer in 1994's Red Sun Rising. He also appeared in Timecop that same year.
Audiences who never learned his name still knew his work. In Jim Abrahams' 1993 comedy Hot Shots! Part Deux, a parody of the Rambo films, Lew squared off against Charlie Sheen's character Topper Harley in a memorable fight sequence. In Steven Soderbergh's Traffic in 2000, he was there again.
Lew did not just take direction. In 2006 he wrote and directed 18 Fingers of Death!, a mockumentary inspired by his own life navigating Hollywood. In 2021 he co-directed the parody Made in Chinatown, which featured actor Vincent Pastore.
Industry recognition followed. In 2017, Lew won an Emmy for outstanding stunt coordination for a drama series, limited series, or movie for his work on the Netflix series Luke Cage. Last year, the Black Belt Hall of Fame inducted him, a fitting honor for a man who once described his introduction to the martial arts as "a natural discovery and curiosity."
"My lifelong adventure into the martial arts began when I was 14 years old. It was part of a natural discovery and curiosity that I decided to 'try' training in the martial arts. The school was a combination of taekwondo and Tang Soo Do."
Those words, from an undated interview, capture the modesty of a performer who spent nearly 50 years making other actors look tougher, faster, and more dangerous than they were, and who did it without complaint.
Stunt performers occupy a strange place in Hollywood. They absorb the hits, design the choreography, and train the stars. Their faces rarely appear on posters. Lew's filmography, spanning the mid-1970s through 2021, covered the full arc of modern American action cinema, from the low-budget martial arts wave to the Marvel franchise era. Few performers in any craft can claim that range.
His cause of death remains unknown. Potter's Instagram post announced the loss but offered no further details. Lew is survived by his wife; information about other survivors has not been made public.
Hollywood will keep making action movies. Finding another James Lew, a man who did the real work, earned the real bruises, and let the stars take the bow, will be the hard part.
