1964 Karate Championship
This program is from Edmund Parker’s 1964 Long Beach International
Karate Championship. This tournament was one of the major karate tournaments in
the United States at that time.
This 1964 tournament is famous for being the “discovery” of a young martial art
demonstrator named Bruce Lee. Soon following this tournament, Bruce Lee was cast
in the television show, “The Green Hornet,” and in another role as “Kato” in the
Batman series with Adam West & Burt Ward. This led to many future movie roles
for Bruce Lee in America.
Among the other martial art demonstrators in this tournament were Jhoon Rhee,
Takayuki Kabota, and Grandmaster Kim Soo (Byung Soo Kim in the program).
Grandmaster Kim Soo was invited to come to the 1964 tournament from Korea by Edmund
Parker. Unfortunately, Grandmaster Kim Soo couldn’t get a U.S. VISA to make the
trip. But, Mr. Parker kept Grandmaster Kim Soo in the tournament program.
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