Martin Kove was born on March 6, 1947 in Brooklyn, New York. Strong-featured, narrow-eyed actor who has portrayed a mixed bag of both good guys and bad guys! First turned up on screen in several minor roles, and got himself noticed as the villainous Nero the Hero in the low-budget road race La course à la mort de l'an 2000 (1975), and then as Clem the sadistic rigger, breaking Jan-Michael Vincent's ribs in La route de la violence (1975). He cropped up on the television series Cagney et Lacey (1981) as honest Police Detective Isbecki, and then got on the wrong side of rampaging Sylvester Stallone in Rambo II: La mission (1985).
Kove probably scored his greatest visibility to the public (in the hugely successful Le moment de vérité (1984) in which he played John Kreese, the head instructor of the Cobra Kai karate school, and he reprised the role in the two sequels, Karate kid, le moment de vérité II (1986) and Karate kid III (1989). Kove has since kept consistently busy, primarily in the action-thriller film genre, and has notched up over 80 film appearances to date, as well as numerous television guest roles.
