I had the pleasure of speaking with esteemed actor and minister, Mel Novak. I knew he was a talented actor – I did not know he was a prison and skid row minister.
Mel was set to be an athlete, however, fate had other plans for him, and he has had over 28 surgeries and he is a cancer survivor. He is divorced, and raised his two daughters alone.
As an actor, Mel made his film debut in two 1970’s films – Truck Turner (with Isaac Hayes) and Black Belt Jones (with Jim Kelly). He then went on the work with Yul Brynner and Sybil Danning. Mel has worked on more than 64 films, and in 2021 he has at least 4 films on the horizon.
Mel was the hitman “Stick” in the 1978 film Game of Death with Bruce Lee. How many times does anyone get to be the Bruce Lee hitman? After that, he worked with Chuck Norris on two films.
More importantly, Mel talked about his calling as a prison minister and working on skid row. He says he several huge trash bags (no he is not throwing them out) of letters from prisoners, letting him know how he changed their lives. I’ve posted his Wikipedia link below.
Mel is so interesting – cannot wait to do episode two!
