New York born, strong featured, narrow eyed and often untrustworthy looking actor who has portrayed a mixed bag of both good 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 Death Race 2000, and then as "Clem" the sadistic rigger, breaking Jan-Michael Vincent's ribs in White Line Fever. He cropped up in the hit TV series Cagney & Lacey as honest Police Detective Isbecki, and then (stupidly) got on the wrong side of rampaging Sylvester Stallone in Rambo: First Blood Part II.

Kove probably scored his greatest visibility to the public (yet again, as another villain) in the hugely successful The Karate Kid in which he played "John Kreese", the brutal head instructor of the Cobra Kai karate school, and he reprised the role in the two sequels, The Karate Kid, Part II and The Karate Kid, Part III.

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 TV guest roles.


Honorary marshal of Tarzana, California During the mid-to-late 1980s and early 1990s, Kove was a well-known TV-spokesman for King Cobra beer: "Don't let the smooth taste fool you." In more recent years, however, he has sworn off alcohol. Has black belts in all of the following martial arts: Kendo; Okinawa-te; and Tiger Kenpo.