Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born April 16, 1947 in New York City, New York) was a successful high school, collegiate, and professional NBA basketball player. He is the NBA's all-time leading scorer with 38,387 points. Today, he is a successful coach, author, and part-time actor.

Outside basketball

Actor

Playing for the Lakers allowed Jabbar to try his hand at acting. In 1980, he played co-pilot Roger Murdock in David Zucker's comedy, Airplane!. He had numerous other TV and film roles, often playing himself, such as in the hit Chevy Chase movie Fletch and the ABC sitcom Full House. Other notable roles include 1978's Game of Death, where his character Hakim fought Bruce Lee's character Billy Lo, and in Stephen King's telemovie version of The Stand. He also played himself in Slam Dunk Ernest starring Jim Varney and made a brief non-speaking cameo appearance in another David Zucker comedy, 1998's BASEketball. In addition, Abdul-Jabbar was co-executive producer of the 1994 TV movie, The Vernon Johns Story.

Related Topics:
Acting - David Zucker - Airplane! - TV - Chevy Chase - Fletch - Full House - Game of Death - Bruce Lee - Stephen King - The Stand - Slam Dunk Ernest - Jim Varney - BASEketball - The Vernon Johns Story

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Author

He is also a bestselling author, the latest of his books being Brothers In Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, WWII's Forgotten Heroes (Publisher: Broadway 2004, ISBN 0385503385), co-written with Anthony Walton. It is the history of the 761st Battalion, an all-black tank squadron.

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Other books:

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• Giant Steps with Peter Knobler (1987) ISBN 0553050443
• Kareem (1990) ISBN 0394559274
• Selected from Giant Steps (Writers' Voices) (1999) ISBN 0785799125
• Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement with Alan Steinburg (2000) ISBN 0380813416
• A Season on the Reservation: My Soujourn with the White Mountain Apaches with Stephen Singular (2000) ISBN 0688170773