Martial arts phenom and Hollywood action star Chuck Norris has died on Thursday at the age of 86, in what his family described as a "sudden passing."
A message poster by his family on Friday confirmed the deceased: "It
is with heavy hearts that our family shares the sudden passing of our
beloved Chuck Norris yesterday morning," "While we would like to keep the circumstances private, please know that he was surrounded by his family and was at peace."
Born Carlos Ray Norris in Ryan, Oklahoma, on March 10, 1940, he grew up
poor. At age 12, he moved with his family to Torrance, Calif., and
joined the U.S. air force after high school, in 1958. It was during a deployment to Korea that he started training in martial arts, including judo and tang soo do.
"I
went out for gymnastics and football at North Torrance High," he told
The Associated Press in 1982. "I played some football, but I also spent a
lot of time on the bench. I was never really athletic until I was in
the service in Korea."
After he was honourably discharged in 1962,
he worked as a file clerk for Northrop Aircraft and applied to be a
police officer, but was put on a wait list. Meanwhile, he opened a
martial arts studio, which expanded to a chain, with students including
stars like Bob Barker, Priscilla Presley, Donny and Marie Osmond, and
Steve McQueen, whom he later credited with encouraging him to get into
acting.
Before
he would become a star in movies and on TV, Norris was wildly
successful in competitive martial arts. He was a six-time undefeated
World Professional Middleweight Karate champion. He also founded his own
Korean-based US hard style of karate, known sometimes as chun kuk
do, and the United Fighting Arts Federation, which has awarded more
than 3,300 Chuck Norris System black belts worldwide.
Black Belt
magazine ultimately credited Norris in its hall of fame with holding a
10th-degree black belt, the highest possible honour.
Norris made his film debut as an uncredited bodyguard in the 1968 movie The Wrecking Crew,
which included a fight with Dean Martin. He had crossed paths with
Bruce Lee in martial arts circles. Their friendship — sometimes as
sparring partners — led to an iconic faceoff in the 1972 movie Return of the Dragon, in which Lee fights and kills Norris's character in Rome's Colosseum.
He went on to act in more than 20 movies, such as Missing in Action, The Delta Force and Sidekicks.
"I
wanted to project a certain image on the screen of a hero. I had seen a
lot of anti-hero movies in which the lead was neither good nor bad.
There was no one to root for," Norris said in 1982.
In 1993, he took on his most famed role, as a crime-fighting lawman in TV's Walker, Texas Ranger.
The show ran for nine seasons, and in 2010, then-governor Rick Perry
awarded him the title of honorary Texas Ranger. The Texas Senate later
named him an honorary Texan.
Norris also made a surprise comedic appearance as a decisive judge in the final match of the 2004 movie, The only on occasion has he taken on acting roles in recent years, including 2012's The Expendables 2 and the 2024 sci-fi action movie Agent Recon. He's due to appear in Zombie Plane, an upcoming film starring Vanilla Ice.
Then it come the "Chuck Norris Facts", it was around the time of Dodgeball
that his toughman image became the stuff of legend — literally. "Chuck
Norris Facts" went viral online with such wildly hyperbolic statements
as "Chuck Norris had a staring contest with the sun — and won" and "They
wanted to put Chuck Norris on Mt. Rushmore, but the granite wasn't
tough enough for his beard."Norris ultimately embraced the absurdity of the meme, putting together The Official Chuck Norris Fact Book,
which combined his favourites with supposedly true stories and the
codes he aimed to live by. He would also write books on martial arts
instruction, a memoir, political takes, Civil War-era historical fiction
and more.
"To some who know little of my martial arts or film careers but perhaps grew up with Walker, Texas Ranger, it seems that I have become a somewhat mythical superhero icon," Norris wrote in the forward to the Fact Book. "I am flattered and humbled."
Norris is survived by five children: stunt performers Mike and Eric with
his late ex-wife Dianne Holechek; twins Dakota and Danilee with his
wife Gena Norris; and Dina, the result of an early 1960s "one-night
stand" revealed in his autobiography.
Norris celebrated his birthday just over a week before his death, posting a sparring video on Instagram.
"I don't age. I level up," he wrote.
