Celebrity Name : Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Celebrity Real Name : Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr.

Date of Birth : 16 April, 1947

Birth Location : New York City,  New  York

Biography of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar :
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr. on April 16, 1947 in New York City, New York, United States; typically referred to as Lew Alcindor) is a former professional basketball player.
Considered one of the greatest players of all time, the 7ft-2in (2.18 m) Abdul-Jabbar played center for UCLA from 1965–69. Later, he played professionally for the Milwaukee Bucks (1969–75) and the Los Angeles Lakers (1975–89), accumulating 38,387 points, the NBA’s highest career total. He was famous for his “Skyhook” shot which defenders found virtually impossible to block. His on-court success was superlative, as he won a record six NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, while playing on six NBA championship teams; at UCLA, he played on three NCAA championship teams. His high-school team won 71 consecutive games and his UCLA teams were an unmatched 88-2. After a then-record 20 professional seasons in the NBA, Abdul-Jabbar retired from the game in 1989, leaving a legacy of professionalism, class, and success. Following his success as a professional athlete, Abdul-Jabbar has become known as a successful basketball coach, author, and part-time actor.

Early years :
He was born to Cora and Ferdinand Lewis “Al” Alcindor in Harlem, New York City, in 1947, and was 12 pounds, 11 ounces, and was twenty-two and a half inches. [1] He was raised as a Catholic. From an early age he began his record-breaking basketball accomplishments. In high school, he led Power Memorial Academy to three straight New York City Catholic championships, a 71-game winning streak, and a 96–6 overall record.

College :
Heavily sought by collegiate basketball programs, he played for the UCLA Bruins from 1966 to 1969 under coach John Wooden, contributing to the team’s three-year record of 88 wins and only two losses (it must be noted that in his day, freshmen were not eligible for varsity athletics). During his college career, he was twice named Player of the Year (1967, 1969), was a three-time First Team All-American (1967-69), played on three NCAA Basketball champion teams (1967, 1968, 1969), was honored as the Most Outstanding Player in the NCAA Tournament (1967, 1968, 1969), and became the first-ever Naismith College Player of the Year in 1969.
Lew Alcindor graduated with a B.A. in History from UCLA in 1969. While playing for UCLA, he suffered a scratched left cornea. This would occur again during his pro career and he would then wear goggles for protection.
Also during his studies at UCLA he converted to Islam and took his current name, which translates to “noble, powerful servant”. He converted after meeting Khalifah Hamaas Abdul Khaalis, a former Nation of Islam leader and founder of a Washington, D.C.-based mosque of the Hanafi Madhhab. In 1973, he traveled to Libya and Saudi Arabia, making pilgrimage. He details this conversion in his autobiography “Giant Steps”.

Professional athletics :
The Harlem Globetrotters offered him $1 million to play for them, but he declined, and he was picked first in the 1969 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, only in their second season, who won the coin-toss for first pick over the Phoenix Suns.
Lew Alcindor’s entry into the NBA was timely, as center Bill Russell had just left the Boston Celtics, and Wilt Chamberlain, though still effective, was aging, at almost 35 years. Alcindor’s presence enabled the 1969-70 Bucks to claim second place in the NBA’s Eastern Division with a 56-26 record (up from 27-55 the previous year), and he was an instant star, ranking second in the league in scoring (28.8 ppg) and third in rebounding (14.5 rpg), for which he was awarded the title of NBA Rookie of the Year.
With the addition of Oscar Robertson, Milwaukee went on to record a league-best 66 victories in 1970-71, including a then-record of 20 straight wins. Alcindor was awarded his first of six NBA Most Valuable Player Awards, along with his first scoring title (31.7 ppg). In the playoffs, the Bucks went 12-2 (including a four-game sweep of the Baltimore Bullets in the NBA Finals) and Alcindor was named Finals MVP. On May 1, 1971, the day after the Bucks won the NBA championship, he adopted the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, meaning “noble, servant of the powerful one [i.e. of Allah].”

Film career :
Playing in Los Angeles facilitated Abdul-Jabbar’s trying his hand at acting. Kareem made his movie debut in Bruce Lee’s 1978 film Game of Death, in which his character Hakim fought Billy Lo (played by Lee). However, due to Lee’s death during production, the film was never finished, and much of the footage has been lost[citation needed].
In 1980, he played co-pilot Roger Murdock in David Zucker’s comedy, Airplane!. In this acclaimed movie, Abdul-Jabbar has a notable scene in which a little boy looks at him and remarks that he is in fact Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Staying in his role, he asserts he is merely Roger Murdock, but the boy continues that he thinks he is “the greatest”, but that his dad thinks he does not “work hard on defense” and “never really tries, except during the playoffs”. This causes Kareem to blow a fuse, grab the boy and snarl he has heard “that crap since UCLA”, he “busts his buns every night” and he should tell his father to “drag Bill Walton and Bob Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes”. When Murdock passes out later in the film, he is carried out wearing Abdul-Jabbar’s goggles and yellow Lakers’ shorts.
He had numerous other TV and film roles, often playing himself, such as in the hit Chevy Chase movie Fletch, the ABC sitcom Full House, and Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air, and Scrubs. He also appeared in the telemovie version of Stephen King’s The Stand. He 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.

Trivia :

* Abdul-Jabbar has a prescription to smoke marijuana in the state of California, the result of nausea-inducing migraine headaches [5].
* Abdul-Jabbar was successful in suing Miami Dolphins running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar because he felt Karim was sponging off of the name he made famous by having the Abdul-Jabbar moniker and number 33 on Dolphins jerseys. As a result the younger Abdul-Jabbar had to change his jersey nameplate to simply ‘Abdul’ while playing for the Dolphins[6]. The football player had also been an athlete at UCLA.
* Abdul-Jabbar has twice appeared on Celebrity Jeopardy!, coasting to dominant victories each time. His first appearance was against Larry King and Alexandra Paul in 1994; his second was against Martina Navratilova and Reggie Jackson in a special “athletes” edition in 1998.
* In The Simpsons episode The Way We Weren’t, Homer Simpson, as a child growing up and in an attempt to become more popular, says his name is “Elvis Jagger Abdul-Jabbar” when asked what his name is; a referrence to Abdul-Jabbar’s status as a pop icon in the 1970s.
* The rock band the Red Hot Chili Peppers honour him in their instrumental song “Salute to Kareem” and is an “all time great super super star” in their song “Magic Johnson”.
* Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam wrote a song about Abdul-Jabbar based on the urban myth that he lost all of his money investing in hotels for tall people. The song, entitled “Sweet Lew”, appears on the band’s album of B-sides, Lost Dogs. The liner notes explain that Ament was inspired to write the song after being brushed off by his boyhood idol after meeting him at a celebrity basketball game.
* Abdul-Jabbar also played Hakim in the film Game of Death. His character was the last and most dangerous guardian that Bruce Lee’s character had to face. In the extended footage of the final fight scenes of the film, which last about half an hour, Abdul-Jabbar and Bruce Lee fight on the highest level of a pagoda which Bruce’s character had to fight his way up. From Bruce’s viewpoint, the highest level on the pagoda is where Jeet Kune Do, represented by Abdul-Jabbar himself, is found. Through the entire fight, both men not only fight with an ease hard to obtain, but they both make it known neither of them fear death.[wikipedia]