Van Damme Is Back On Track -- He's Dealt With Drug Addiction, Family Upheaval

NEW YORK - There was a time, not very long ago, when action star Jean-Claude Van Damme was considered the embodiment of physical perfection.

Possessing a sculpted, gymnast's body, a head of wavy, dark hair and a smile that stretched across his handsome face, he hovered in a career holding pattern - not in a league with Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone, but charming and romantic in a way neither of the bulkier men could ever be.

It was a noticeably grayer and more subdued Van Damme who appeared on David Letterman's late-night show recently.

Smiling but fidgety, vaguely admitting to a problem that even Letterman was too timid to name, the once ebullient action star said he was taking care of his demons "day by day."

The Belgian star's problems began when he divorced his third wife, former bodybuilder Gladys Portugues, and left his two children behind while he courted and eventually married Darcy LaPier, who was already married when they met.

The year was 1993, and it was the beginning of a tailspin that almost cost Van Damme his life.

"I'm not afraid to die," Van Damme says quietly in a telephone interview. "But I almost did. If you want to talk about it, we would need six hours. We could talk about ecology or the plight of animals or people who have all this success but don't deserve it. But I have already explained what I did."

Ostensibly, Van Damme is touring the country to promote his new movie, "Knock Off," a Hong Kong-based action film made during the height of his admitted drug addiction.

"I don't feel I have to do this (tour) for my career," he says. "But they asked me to after all the things came out in those papers like the National Enquirer and the Globe. It was all wrong, and I want to give the real story. It's cool to do it."

A year ago, when Van Damme had just finished filming "Knock Off," he nearly overdosed on cocaine in a Hong Kong hotel room.

During the episode, he listed his fears and problems on the back of a script, coming back from the edge with a resolution to get his life in order.

There was a six-day stint in rehabilitation, an acrimonious split with LaPier (whom he is divorcing) after numerous public battles and separations during which he denied fathering their son, and a reunion with Portugues, who always stayed in touch.

"I trust Gladys," Van Damme says when asked to whom he turns these days. "Do you want to talk to her?"

A clear-voiced woman comes to the phone.

"Yes, I'm really Gladys," she explains, cheerfully. "He's a gentle giant."

She confirms a story Van Damme likes to tell about his seduction of her. She was a champion bodybuilder and he was a struggling nobody.

Bigger bodybuilders stripped off their shirts to impress her, but she became attracted to what Van Damme did for attention: When he took off his shirt, he was wearing suspenders underneath.

"That's true," she says, laughing at the memory. "It happened in Baja California. He is the sweetest person. He has good people around him now."

The mother of Van Damme's son, Kristopher, 11, and daughter, Bianca, 7, Portugues says she forgives her ex-husband everything.

"I always knew he loved me. I was always in contact with him. It was always other people who didn't quite understand that. Whenever he was down and out, he would always call. He loves the children and he's a wonderful father.

"But Hollywood's always been like a black hole."

"In one year so much has happened," Van Damme says sadly. "My mother needed open-heart surgery. All these things about me were in the papers. Sometimes things happen that way."

And they continue to happen to Van Damme, who in February got drunk at a topless bar and became involved in "friction" over a remark he made. He sheepishly takes responsibility for the whole incident.

Reminded that he once marveled at the moist look in Kirk Douglas' eyes in "Spartacus," a look Van Damme equated with a love of life in his own eyes, he says softly: "I think it's back. I lost some of my soul, but I came back. I think that look is coming back into my eyes."