Blackie Chen or Chen Chien-chou is a Taiwanese television host, actor, basketball manager, entrepreneur and a former basketball player.
Career
Basketball
In 1994, when Chen Chien-chou was 17, his father was killed in the China Airlines Flight 140 crash. He got into a brawl and was detained by the police. In order to secure his release, his aging grandfather tearfully begged the police officers. Chen Chien-chou felt so ashamed that he was determined to turn himself around. He practiced basketball very seriously. He made the Chinese Taipei junior national team and played in the 1995 ABC Under-18 Championship where they finished 5th. Although only 190 cm, Chen played in the paint. He modelled his game after Charles Barkley, also an undersized big man. In 1999, after missing the cut for the Chinese Taipei national basketball team, he played for the B national team at the William Jones Cup. Later, playing for a club in the Singaporean league, he tore his anterior cruciate ligament for the second time in an accident. His basketball career ended prematurely as a result.
Entertainment
Chen became a performing artist, and a host of numerous variety shows. Because of his dark skin, he has come to be known by the nickname "Blackie", it is also because the name rhymes with Jackie Chan, in which they both are trained in judo, which Blackie obtained a blue belt. He has been in a relationship with Christine Fan for 10 years, before finally getting engaged in 2010. They were married in Taipei on May 7, 2011. Currently the team leader and head of marketing for the Taiwan Beer Basketball Team, Chen directed a 2008 documentary entitled Attitude on the team's quest to become Super Basketball League champion. The documentary was well received and earned him widespread acclaim and accolades from the Taiwanese film industry. Many consider it the high-water mark of Taiwanese sports related documentary films. Chen is also a television personality and host for several television shows. He is slated to play Peng Dehuai in the highly anticipated miniseries Untold Stories of 1949, to be produced for HBO Asia. Chen, along with his wife Christine Fan, are also the co-founder and spokespeople for the Love Life campaign, after becoming a Christian, as influenced by her mother-in-law while Christine was recovering from severe depression and mild anorexia.
