Ted Jan "TJ" Roberts

[AlbertV]

Born on September 24, 1979, Ted Jan Roberts, or TJ, was a martial arts champion at a young age. After making his debut on an episode of Married with Children, he was discovered by Joseph Merhi and Richard Pepin of PM Entertainment. They signed the young karate ace to a multi-picture deal with their market to be aimed at younger audiences. The first film, Magic Kid, was about Kevin, a karate champion who goes to Hollywood to see his agent uncle and meet his idol, Don "The Dragon" Wilson. When Uncle Bob goes into debt and is targeted by some goons, Kevin uses his karate skills and eventually a showdown at a club leads to his dream coming true. This led to a sequel, Magic Kid 2, directed by "Uncle Bob" himself, the late Stephen Furst.

A Dangerous Place was next in which Jerry P. Jacobs took over as director and featured fight choreography by Art Camacho, The film meshed a Lifetime movie with martial arts as Roberts' Ethan infiltrates a rival karate team from his school to find out what happened to his brother. Corey Feldman played the main villain alongside Road House icon Marshall Teague as Feldman's coach. Heard from co-star Jason Majik that Feldman was very professional and took his training under Camacho seriously at the time. 

Next came Camacho's directorial debut, The Power Within, where we get to see William Zabka play Raymond Vonn, a villain hellbent on gaining some formidable power when he has one half of a pair of rings and the other is given to Roberts' Stan after an encounter with the former owner. Stan, who gets bullied, all of a sudden, finds himself endowed with the confidence and skills necessary to not only stand up for himself, but become an unlikely hero. Don Wilson makes a cameo as himself who teaches Stan a lesson about humility and respect. 

Roberts would then lead the Saban series Masked Rider, an adaptation of the tokukatsu series Kamen Rider Black RX, where he played Prince Dex of Edenoi, who must go to Earth and become its protector from the evil Count Dregon. The series lasted two seasons. 

Roberts would then appear in Tiger Heart, in which he plays Greg, a martial artist who helps his new girlfriend and her grandfather take on some thugs who want to demolish the grandfather's market for a new shopping center. Art Camacho plays Greg's sensei and even gets to team up with him in a fight scene against some goons. Look for a hilarious cameo by Matthias Hues. 

The adventure film Hollywood Safari would be Roberts' last film for PM and afterwards, he took some time off. He learned filmmaking on the set of his films, but also got to work as an apprentice for Gus Van Sant. This would lead to Roberts making a small appearance as Dennis Peron in the biopic Milk, opposite Sean Penn and Josh Brolin. His last film appearance was a short film in 2017 called Room 138.

That's TJ in the black hat! 

Edited May 20, 2023 by AlbertV