Jackie Chan's life in pics

Actor Jackie Chan famous for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons and innovative stunts was born on April 7, 1954 in Hong Kong. As the actor celebrates his 56th birthday today we take a look at his life...

Jackie Chan weighed around 12 pounds at the time of his birth and was nicknamed Paopao (meaning canonball in Chinese). His parents Charles and Lee-Lee Chan were refugees from the Chinese Civil War. Since his parents worked for the French Consul to Hong Kong, Chan spent his formative years within the grounds of the consul's residence in the Victoria Peak district.

Jackie has been married to Lin Feng-Jiao since 1982 and has a son, actor-singer Jaycee Chan.

Chan trained rigorously and excelled in martial arts and acrobatics. He eventually became part of the Seven Little Fortunes, a performance group made up of the school's best students, gaining the stage name Yuen Lo in homage to his master.

Chan became close friends with fellow group members Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao, the three of them later to be known as the Three Brothers or Three Dragons.

Chan appeared with Li again the following year, in The Love Eterne (1963) and had a small role in King Hu's 1966 film, Come Drink with Me.

In 1971, after an appearance as an extra in another Kung Fu film, A Touch of Zen, Chan began his adult career in the film industry, initially signing to Chu Mu's Great Earth Film Company. At the age of 17, he worked as a stuntman in the Bruce Lee films Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon under the stage name Chan Yuen Lung.

Due to the commercial failures in his early ventures into films and trouble finding stunt work, in 1975 Chan starred in a comedy film, All in the Family, which features Jackie Chan's first and possibly the only nude scene filmed to date. It is also the only film he has made to date that did not feature a single fight scene or stunt sequence.

Chan joined his parents in Canberra in 1976, where he briefly attended Dickson College and worked as a construction worker. A fellow builder named Jack took Chan under his wing, earning Chan the nickname of Little Jack which was later shortened to Jackie and the name Jackie Chan stuck with him ever since.

Jackie Chan performs most of his own stunts, which are choreographed by the Jackie Chan Stunt Team. He has stated in interviews that the primary inspiration for his more comedy-stunts were films such as The General directed by and starring Buster Keaton, who was also known to perform his own stunts.

Since its establishment in 1983, Chan has used the team in all his subsequent films to make choreographing easier, given his understanding of each member's abilities. Chan and his team undertake many of the stunts performed by other characters in his films, shooting the scenes so that their faces are obscured.

The dangerous nature of his stunts makes it difficult for Chan to get insurance, especially in the United States, where his stunt work is contractually limited.

Chan holds the Guinness World Record for 'Most Stunts By A Living Actor', which emphasizes ''no insurance company will underwrite Chan's productions, in which he performs all his own stunts''.

In addition, he holds an unrecognised record for the most number of takes for a single shot in a film, having shot over 2900 retakes for a complex scene involving a badminton game in Dragon Lord.

Chan has been injured numerous times attempting stunts; many of them have been shown as outtakes or as bloopers during the closing credits of his films. He came closest to death filming Armour of God, when he fell from a tree and fractured his skull.

Over the years, Chan has dislocated his pelvis and broken his fingers, toes, nose, both cheekbones, hips, sternum, neck, ankle and ribs on numerous occasions.

Jackie Chan created his screen persona as a response to Bruce Lee, and the numerous imitators who appeared before and after Lee's death. In contrast to Lee's characters, who were typically stern, morally upright heroes, Chan plays well-meaning, slightly foolish regular guys (often at the mercy of their friends, girlfriends or families) who always triumph in the end despite the odds.

Despite the success of the Rush Hour series, Chan has stated that he is not a fan of it since he neither appreciates the action scenes in the movie, nor understands American humour.

In recent years, the aging Chan grew tired of being typecast as an action hero, prompting him to act with more emotion in his latest films. In New Police Story, he portrayed a character suffering from alcoholism and mourning his murdered colleagues.

To further shed the image of Mr. Nice Guy, Chan played an anti-hero for the first time in Rob-B-Hood starring as Thongs, a burglar with gambling problems.

Jackie Chan has a Indian connection too, the megastar appeared with Indian beauty Mallika Sherawat in the film The Myth in 2005.