California Birth Index
Ivan Gene Lebell, born October 9 1932, Los Angeles, mother’s maiden name Goldstein

1950 US Census
534 Fuller, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
Head Michael LeBell, age 20, born California, television operator film studio
Brother Gene LeBell, age 17, born California

from www.imdb.com
"Judo" Gene LeBell the "Godfather of Grappling" is both a renowned ex-world champion in both wrestling/judo, and one of Hollywood's busiest stuntmen. He is highly respected by many martial artists all over the world, and has been considered a ground breaker in many aspects of the art of grappling.

Gene started training in judo at a young age, and at the age of 20 in 1954, he won National AAU Heavyweight Judo Championship and the USA Overall Judo Championship title. He went on to win the both the Heavyweight and overall champion title 1955 as well. After an illustrious judo career, Gene tried his hand at professional wrestling, and actually won the heavyweight title in Amarillo, Texas. However, in his excitement Gene swung the title belt around his head, which accidentally hit one of the wrestling commissioners on the head, causing a nasty gash. The belt was immediately seized from the shocked Gene, which in later years would cause him to comment, "Well, at least I was the champ for 12 seconds and I retired as champion."

Gene went on to fight numerous opponents over the years including practitioners from other fighting arts that scoffed at Gene's prowess, however they learned the hard way that Gene's superb grappling skills were the real deal. Gene has trained with numerous other world champion martial artists including Chuck Norris, Bill Wallace, and Benny Urquidez.

Gene has been acting and contributing stunt work to Hollywood productions for over fifty years. He can be seen in TV shows including Mission: Impossible (1966), I Spy (1965), The Wild Wild West (1965), Baretta (1975), Married with Children (1986), and Baywatch (1989). Gene's feature film appearances include Raging Bull (1980), Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985), Bad Guys (1986), Ed Wood (1994), and Men in Black II (2002).

The remarkable "Judo" Gene Lebell is still teaching grappling and doing stunts at age 70+. He is also a Nevada and California Athletic Commission judge most recently judging UFC 74 (Randy Couture vs. Gabriel Gonzaga) plus he has a highly popular website visited by martial arts and film fans all over the globe.

Gene has 3 children, firstborn son, stuntman David LeBell, daughter Monica LeBell Pandis who is a fraud investigator for the federal US Goverment and Danny "LeBell" Martindale. Gene also has 4 grandsons, Jimmy James LeBell (son of David), Nicholas & Aleksander (sons of Monica) and Daniel Gene (son of Danny).

- IMDb Mini Biography By: firehouse44@hotmail.com

Also from IMDB
Trivia
Defeated boxer Milo Savage in a boxer versus wrestler match.
Defeated Pat O'Conner for the world wrestling title.
His mother once owned the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium.
Is a black belt in judo.
Is a former world wrestling champion.
Son of Aileen Eaton.
Was a close friend of Bruce Lee. LeBell learned Jeet Kune Do under the legendary martial artist and, in exchange, he taught Lee many of his grappling techniques.
Is a very close friend of many legendary martial artists. Among them: Benny Urquidez, Robert Wall, Joe Lewis, Chuck Norris, Bill Wallace, Royce Gracie, Mike Stone, and Maurice Smith.
Taught many of his grappling techniques to UFC fighter Karo Parisyan.
Gene Le Bell is the younger brother of wrestling promoter Mike Le Bell.
Published author.
Acts and teaches judo privately [2003]
Was the co-promoter along with his brother Mike for the NWA Hollywood wrestling promotion, which his family owned. He also did announcing for the promotion's weekly television show.
Once choked out Steven Seagal for taking liberties with a lot of the stuntmen who were working on his movies. LaBelle took exception with it and when Segal tried to physically attack LaBelle and he wound up putting Segal in a choke hold until he was unconscious.
Father of fellow stuntman David LeBell.

The Hollywood Reporter August 10, 2022
Gene LeBell, Famed Stuntman and “Godfather of Grappling,” Dies at 89
A martial artist and judo champion, he taught Bruce Lee, fought in an early mixed martial arts fight and served as an inspiration for a Tarantino character.
Gene LeBell, the colorful judo champion, wrestler and stuntman who trained Bruce Lee, fought Elvis Presley and John Wayne in the movies and was an inspiration for Brad Pitt’s character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has died. He was 89.
LeBell died in his sleep early Tuesday morning at his home in Sherman Oaks, his trustee and business manager, Kellie Cunningham, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Affectionately known as the “Godfather of Grappling” and “Judo” Gene LeBell, he was a two-time AAU national judo champion early in his career. Later, he taught his masterful submission techniques to Lee, Chuck Norris, pro wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, MMA fighter Ronda Rousey and many, many others.
With his legendary strong handshake, red hair, weathered face and battered nose, LeBell was universally admired by fighters and wrestlers around the world.
By his own admission, “every star in Hollywood beat me up” when he was a stuntman and actor. Wayne punched him square in the face in Big Jim McLain (1952), Presley karate-kicked him between the eyes in Blue Hawaii (1961), Gene Hackman went toe-to-toe with him in Loose Cannon (1990), and Burt Reynolds kicked him where it hurts in Hard Time (1998).
Even Steve Martin roughed him up and threw him into a swimming pool in The Jerk (1979).
“The more you get hit in the nose, the richer you are,” LeBell liked to say.
On ABC’s The Green Hornet, he met Lee for the first time and forged a friendship with the Hong Kong martial arts star despite a rocky introduction.
During taping, it was reported that Lee was beating up on the stuntmen, prompting stunt coordinator Bennie Dobbins to bring in LeBell to help set the actor straight by “putting him in a headlock or something.”
In his 2005 autobiography The Godfather of Grappling, LeBell remembered grabbing Lee, who then “started making all those noises that he became famous for … but he didn’t try to counter me, so I think he was more surprised than anything else.”
He then hoisted Lee over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and ran around the set as Lee shouted, “Put me down or I’ll kill you.”
To LeBell, the altercation revealed that Lee’s repertoire was without submission maneuvers, armbars and takedowns. “He came to my school and worked out for over a year, privately,” LeBell said, “and I went and worked out with him at his school.
“I taught him judo and wrestling and … finishing holds that he later worked into some movies. And he showed me a lot of his kicks and striking.”
In The Way of the Dragon (1972), Lee polished off Norris with a chokehold, and in Enter the Dragon (1973), he employed an armbar finish to submit Sammo Hung.
When Quentin Tarantino made Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), he used LeBell as an influence for the character of stunt double Cliff Booth (Oscar winner Pitt) and adapted the LeBell/Lee confrontation into a much-debated fight scene between Booth and Lee (Mike Moh in the movie).
Booth also had an accusation of murder hovering over his head, which might have been a veiled reference to LeBell being charged in the murder of private investigator Robert Duke Hall in 1976. LeBell was acquitted of that charge, and his conviction as an accessory to the crime was later overturned.
Ivan Gene LeBell was born in Los Angeles on Oct. 9, 1932. His mother, Aileen Eaton, promoted fights at the Olympic Auditorium and was the first woman inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
LeBell moved to Japan to study judo and won U.S. titles in the 1950s before segueing to pro wrestling, learning the art of catch wrestling (a grappling style) from Ed “Strangler” Lewis, Lou Thesz and Karl Gotch.  
From 1962-82, he ran the Los Angeles territory of the National Wrestling Alliance with his brother Mike. 
The combat sport pioneer participated in what some credit as the first televised sanctioned mixed martial arts match on Dec. 2, 1963, in Salt Lake City when he took on light heavyweight boxer Milo Savage.
The impetus for the bout came from an article written in Rogue magazine by Jim Beck.
Under the headline “The Judo Bums,” Beck wrote that “judo … is a complete fraud … Every judo man I’ve ever met was a braggart and a show-off … Any boxer can beat a judo man.” Beck put up $1,000 to prove it.
LeBell said he was chosen by his peers because “you’re the most sadistic bastard we know,” and was put up against Beck’s choice of opponent — Savage.At a TV interview the day before the bout, LeBell choked out the interviewer, then screamed into the camera, “Come to the arena tomorrow night and watch me annihilate, mutilate and assassinate your local hero because one martial artist can beat any 10 boxers.”
The bout lasted four rounds and ended when LeBell submitted Savage to a rear naked chokehold. The crowd threw debris and chairs into the ring, and Savage had to be revived by LeBell’s cornermen.
“It sounds like I’m blowing my own horn, and I don’t mean to — I represented all the martial arts. I never said I was doing only judo or karate or kenpo,” he said. “I never said one art is better than the others. They’re all good. You should learn everything. You’re not a complete martial artist unless you do everything.”
He was rewarded when he fought Elvis in Blue Hawaii. The King was so happy with his work, he gave him a $100 bill. “I didn’t have any money then,” he said. “I used to eat every other day. So, I went out and I had the biggest fillet mignon and even tipped the waiter.”
He also did stunts for Presley’s Paradise, Hawaiian Style five years later.
While serving as the stunt coordinator on The Munsters, he appeared on a 1964 episode as grappler Tarzan McGirk in a bout against “The Masked Marvel” (Fred Gwynne’s Herman Munster in disguise).
As a stuntman across five decades on the small screen, LeBell popped up in everything from Gomer Pyle: USMC, Mission: Impossible, Ironside, Batman and The Beverly Hillbillies in the 1960s to The Six Million Dollar Man and Starsky & Hutch in the 1970s, Taxi, The Fall Guy and Married … With Children in the 1980s and even Reno 911! in the 2000s.
On the big screen, he did stunts, often uncredited, for the original Planet of the Apes movies, the 1974 disaster films Earthquake and The Towering Inferno and the Naked Gun flicks, plus King Kong (1976), Airplane! (1980), Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985), RoboCop (1987), Total Recall (1990), Independence Day (1996), Bruce Almighty (2003) and Smoking Aces (2006).
In Raging Bull (1980), he had a speaking role as the ring announcer for one of Jake LaMotta’s (Robert De Niro) fights. Four years earlier, he was in another ring, as the referee in the wacky Muhammad Ali vs. wrestler Antonio Inoki match in Tokyo.
Legend has it that as stunt coordinator on Steven Seagal’s Out of Justice (1991), LeBell was involved in an on-set altercation with the actor and allegedly choked him out.
LeBell never denied the incident, though Seagal did. 
In Bloodfist IV: Die Trying (1992), he attempted to stop legendary kickboxer Don Wilson from hot-wiring his car and, naturally, finished up battered and bruised in a pile of garbage cans.
He trained mixed martial artist and WWE wrestler Rousey and her mother, judo champion AnnMaria De Mars.
“Ronda is the best woman I have ever been associated with, as far as fighting goes,” he said in 2018. “So, when you see Ronda, tell her Gene sent you, that Uncle Gene sent you. But don’t get her mad. Don’t get her mad.”
He authored more than 12 books, including Gene LeBell’s Grappling World — The Encyclopaedia of Finishing Holds, Gene LeBell’s Handbook of Judo, Pro-Wrestling Finishing Holds and The Grappling Club Master, and filmed his techniques for instructional videos.
Survivors include his wife, Eleanor (he called her “Midge”); children Monica and David; stepchildren Danny and Stacey; and grandchildren Daniel, Tyler and Nicholas.
As for his work as a stunt double, LeBell revealed he loved that work because “they don’t even look at you, talk to you, but then you go and turn a car over, set yourself on fire and all of a sudden, the star comes up and says, ‘Hey, that’s great,’ and then you’re buds.”
end of article

The Mercury News August 12, 2022
Gene LeBell, iconic martial arts pioneer, dies at the age of 89
Teacher, stuntman and martial artist was known as ‘Judo Gene’ and the ‘Godfather of Grappling’
Gene LeBell, regarded as America’s first martial arts sensation before parlaying his athleticism into a career as a professional wrestler, actor and stuntman, has died at the age of 89, his family confirmed.
LeBell, who had been in declining health for the past eight months, died in his sleep at home in Sherman Oaks, with his loving wife of years, Midge, by his side on Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2022.
“He was larger than life, and he was so kind. If you said you liked his shirt, he would take it off and give it to you,” Midge LeBell said. “I am devastated. It’s very difficult. I have been with him for so many years. I don’t know how you go on without him. I am so used to him being there. He’s not hurting anymore. He was a wonderful man and was so good to so many. There is nothing bad you can really say about him. He was a good person, so I am sure he is doing well where he is at now. I am sure he is happy now. I want to thank everybody in the world who has said such wonderful things about him and all the prayers that were said for him. I am thanking them for both he and I.”
Midge and Gene were married twice. The second time, they said their vows on a motorcycle as Gene performed a wheelie with Midge holding on, followed close behind by the minister on a four-wheeler. The couple wore matching red, white, and blue wedding attire and Midge wore flowers in her helmet.

“Judo Gene” LeBell was revered for his strength and tenacity and often referred to as “the toughest man alive.” Beneath the rugged demeanor, the “Godfather of Grappling” was also known for his warmth and generosity. For years, he taught martial arts in Southern California.
Born Ivan Gene LeBell on Oct. 9, 1932, in Los Angeles, LeBell grew up at the famed Olympic Auditorium, where his mother, Aileen Eaton, was a boxing and wrestling promoter from 1942 to 1980. Eaton was the first woman inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame
“Fighters practically raised the young LeBell at the Main Street Gym where he started going at 7 years old,” Midge LeBell said. He once sparred with legendary boxer Sugar Ray Robinson as a teenager. He also trained with wrestlers Lou Thesz, and Karl Gotch while growing up.
It’s no wonder LeBell flocked to combat sports and martial arts.
In 1954 and ’55, LeBell won the AAU National Judo Championships heavyweight and overall divisions. He then embarked on his professional wrestling career, implementing his years of judo and catch wrestling and helping popularize the holds and submission attempts that remain in the sports entertainment industry to this day.
LeBell famously wore a pink gi and would invite anybody to take a turn on the mat with him if they had anything to say about it. The pink uniform originated from a trip to Japan where a pair of red socks, or shorts, made their way into the laundry, turning his white uniform to pink. With only one uniform, he wore it and beat the competition. The newspaper the following day had a story saying the American radish wins. LeBell thought it was because he had red hair before someone told him it was because of his pink attire. He wore the pink gi from then on.
LeBell was a pioneer in the sport of MMA before there was MMA. One of the first martial artists to train in wrestling, judo, boxing, karate, and other combat arts, he blended the techniques into an efficient fighting style. In 1963, in Salt Lake City, LeBell took on boxer Milo Savage the fifth-ranked light heavyweight boxer in the world. Kenpo Master Ed Parker asked LeBell to take on the fighter after a challenge was issued stating that a boxer could easily beat any martial artist. LeBell wore a gi for the fight, and Savage had his body greased to make it difficult for LeBell to grab him. LeBell was victorious, choking out the boxer in the fourth round, sparking a riot in the auditorium.
Highly decorated in judo and jiu-jitsu, LeBell also began teaching grappling to notable names: Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Benny “the Jet” Urquidez, Roddy Piper, Bill “Superfoot” Wallace, Gokor Chivichyan, Steve McQueen, George Reeves, Robert Duvall, John Saxon and many more.
LeBell’s top student, Gokor Chivichyan, started training with him at the age of 16 and now runs the Hayastan MMA Academy in North Hollywood. “I look at Gene as my second father. He had a big heart. He was a good man. We are going to miss him a lot,” Chivichyan said of his teacher.
In 2006, LeBell even welcomed an unsuspecting Daily News reporter to the Hayastan Academy for a lesson that went about as you would think when LeBell started it with his common non-serious threat: “Alright, you bums! Let’s get working, or I’ll burn your houses down.
In the 1960s, LeBell began acting and doing stunts, including in three movies with Elvis Presley. On the set of “The Green Hornet,” LeBell struck up a friendship with martial arts icon Bruce Lee, and they began cross-training, with LeBell showing Lee his pain-inflicting holds, locks and throws, and Lee demonstrating his lightning-quick kicks and strikes. Lee and LeBell had a rocky start to their friendship after LeBell hoisted Lee on his back in a fireman’s carry without Lee’s cooperation. Eventually, LeBell put Lee down, and the pair became friends.

eBell’s students included AnnMaria De Mars, the first American to ever win a gold medal at the World Judo Championships in 1984, and De Mars’ daughter, Ronda Rousey, who became the first American woman to earn an Olympic medal in judo by winning bronze at the 2008 Beijing Olympics before embarking on her illustrious MMA career.
“Very, very few people believed in me at the very beginning of my MMA career, you could literally count them on one hand. He was one of the people trying to convince my mom to let me do it, but he was also privately trying to convince me not to do it. He totally supported me, he was telling my mom to let me do it, and he was telling me, ‘I’ve won every R-E-A-L fight and never made a penny and lost every R-E-E-L fight and I am comfortably retired, think about that kid.’ He said he would help me out with this MMA stuff, but he was always trying to get me stunt jobs and to meet the right people in the stunt works so I would have somewhere to go after fighting. He not only tried to help me get into fighting, but he also helped me think about life afterward before anybody would even entertain the thought. He was already trying to get me out and convince me that I am more than just a fighter and capable of so much more,” Rousey said of her longtime friend and mentor, LeBell.
Rousey’s husband, Travis Browne, a former top-ranked UFC heavyweight fighter, met LeBell before meeting his future wife. LeBell gave Browne one of the coveted patches that he always had on hand to make a fan smile. Browne put a patch featuring Rousey and Lebell in his gym bag, and there it remained for five years before he met, fell in love with and married Rousey. “Uncle Gene let him (Browne) know all about me before we met. He put me over to my future husband before we ever met,” Rousey said.
LeBell also helped Rousey secure her nickname “Rowdy” from his former black belt student Rowdy Roddy Piper. “He told Rowdy Piper that he would stretch him if he didn’t let me use it,” Rousey said with a chuckle as she recounted the story.
As Rousey rose to prominence in the UFC as the first woman on its roster and its first female champion, LeBell was always in her corner, often seen with a stopwatch to record her first-round finishes. She has a tattoo of her winning fight times on her right wrist down her forearm. “I got a tattoo of how many seconds it took me to win all my (MMA) matches. My first match, the official time, and his time differed by two seconds, and I was like (expletive) the official time, Gene’s time is what matters, so I tattooed his time.” Rousey and mother De Mars gifted LeBell a new stopwatch for his 80th birthday in 2012.
In a story in the L.A. Daily News in 2011 on Rousey’s breakout potential in the sport, nearly a year and a half before she made her UFC debut, LeBell offered his assessment of his pupil.
“She gets in that ring, and she owns it mentally,” said LeBell, then 78, who couldn’t resist touching upon his pro wrestling background and growling to describe Rousey colorfully. “She says, ‘This is my house. This is my bedroom, my kitchen, my garage and my front room,’ LeBell continued.
“She’s gonna annihilate you. She’s gonna mutilate you. She’s gonna assassinate you.”
In the end, LeBell had appeared in more than 1,000 films, shows and commercials. His roles went from such television series as “Mission: Impossible,” “I Spy,” “The Wild Wild West,” “Baretta,” “Married … with Children,” and “Baywatch” to feature films “Raging Bull,” “Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins” and “Ed Wood.” One of his last appearances was in “Men In Black II” in 2002. LeBell was presented with the Taurus Lifetime Achievement Award on May 13, 2017 for his outstanding contribution to the world of action feature films. The Taurus World Stunt Awards are held yearly to honor stunt performers in movies.
It has been said that Brad Pitt’s character of stuntman Cliff Booth in the 2019 Quentin Tarantino film “Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood,” which included a memorable sequence with Lee, was an homage to LeBell.
LeBell was also at the center of one of the most highly anticipated fights of the 1970s. The “War of the Worlds” pitted heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, against Japanese professional wrestling star Antonio Inoki on June 26, 1976, in Tokyo, with LeBell working as the referee. Watched by more than a billion people worldwide, the fight ended in a draw, with LeBell’s score (71-71) determining the outcome after one judge scored it for Ali and the other for Inoki.

Into his 80s, LeBell was still working as a Nevada and California Athletic Commission MMA judge, scoring fights ringside with his ever-present bag of candy, which he always shared, tucked inside a larger bag resting at his feet.
Tributes came from around the world following the announcement of his passing, including on Twitter from Chuck Norris, Triple H, Titus Welliver and others.
LeBell is survived by his wife, children, and grandchildren.

end of article



See New York Times - August 19, 2022
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/movies/gene-lebell-dead.html

Black Belt Magazine October 5, 2022
https://blackbeltmag.com/life-times-of-gene-lebell

See Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_LeBell