Chuck Norris, veteran, martial arts world champion, action hero and early 2000s Internet meme inspiration, whose rugged demeanor was immortalized on hit show “Walker, Texas Ranger,” has died. He was 86.
“It is with heavy hearts that our family shares the sudden passing of our beloved Chuck Norris yesterday morning,” read a message credited to the Norris family posted to Instagram and Facebook Friday morning. “While we would like to keep the circumstances private, please know that he was surrounded by his family and was at peace.”
Norris had an unidentified medical emergency in Hawaii on Thursday, according to news reports. The family thanked fans for their prayers during his hospitalization.
“He lived his life with faith, purpose, and an unwavering commitment to the people he loved,” the post read. “Through his work, discipline, and kindness, he inspired millions around the world and left a lasting impact on so many lives.”
Beginnings
The ultimate tough guy, Norris’ first memorable acting role was as Bruce Lee’s formidable opponent in the 1972 film “The Way of the Dragon,” before he landed his first leading role five years later as a truck driver searching for his missing brother in “Breaker! Breaker!”
Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Norris made a name for himself as a rugged action hero in movies like “Missing in Action” and “Delta Force,” marking his place in pop culture with an always-stoic countenance and lines like “My kind of trouble doesn’t take vacations” (from 1983’s “Lone Wolf McQuade”).
With his film career cooling off in the 90s, Norris made the switch to television. He won new fans with his long-running series “Walker, Texas Ranger,” which ran from 1993 to 2001.
In the show, Norris played Cordell Walker, a veteran Texas Ranger who fights crime in Dallas and throughout the Lone Star State. Norris was nominated for a TV Guide Award as favorite actor in a drama in 1999.
Mastering the martial arts
Carlos Ray “Chuck” Norris was born in Ryan, Oklahoma, to Irish American and Cherokee Native American parents. Following his parents’ divorce, Norris, his mother and two younger brothers relocated to Prairie Village, Kansas, and then to Torrance, California, according to his Walk of Fame profile.
Norris became acquainted with the world of martial arts while stationed in Korea with the US Airforce in the late 1950s, according to the military. “I started training over there, and then I came back and got out of the service and started teaching. And to get students in my school, I became a karate fighter,” Norris once told Mike Douglas on CNN’s “People Now.”
He even founded his own style of karate, the Chuck Norris System™, originally based on his Tang Soo Do training while serving in Korea.
Among Norris’ many students were Priscilla Presley, the Osmonds, Steve McQueen and Bob Barker, who famously recounted incurring cracked ribs after being kicked in the side by Norris during training.
“I retired as the world karate champion, and I was looking for something to get involved in, a new goal for myself. And I thought about acting,” Norris told CNN in 1982. “I talked to Steve McQueen about it, and he encouraged me to pursue it. He said, if I would apply myself like I did the martial arts, that I would maybe have a chance at it.”
Meme magic
Norris went on to appear in several films highlighting his martial arts background, as well as TV’s “Walker, Texas Ranger” for eight seasons.
“The type of films I want to do is — a good story, with good acting, with good direction, and with martial arts scenes inserted when it’s emotionally right,” Norris once told David Letterman. “The difference between violence and action is the philosophy of when you use it. And if a person tries to avoid a violent confrontation — but he’s finally pushed into the corner where there’s no way out — well, then we want to have the ability to cope with it. And that’s basically the character I project on the screen, is the guy that tries to avoid it.”
In a nod to Norris’ television character, the “Walker, Texas Ranger” action hero and executive producer was named an honorary member of the Texas Rangers, the elite Texas law enforcement force, by Texas Governor Rick Perry in 2010, according to CNN affiliate WFAA.
Norris’ tough-guy persona also inspired an early social media trend often referred to as “Chuck Norris facts,” an ever-growing list of hyperbolic “factoids” about Norris, highlighting his rugged reputation, according to People.
“A kid from Brown University started sending these Chuck Norris facts around via e-mail,” Norris told Time in 2008. “I’m reading them and going, hey, these are pretty doggone funny. My favorite was, ‘They wanted to put Chuck Norris on Mt. Rushmore, but the granite wasn’t tough enough for his beard.’ I figured they’d just last a couple weeks; it amazes me this has gone on for so long.”
A devout Christian and longtime Republican who twice endorsed Mike Huckabee for president, Norris also told Time that military members stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time started developing their own Chuck Norris facts. “That’s actually how I got to Iraq in the first place — the troops started bugging their commanders,” he said. “When I arrived in Iraq, I saw a sign that said, ‘Chuck Norris is here. We can now go home.’ Man, I wished that was the truth,” he said.
With his trademark hard-boiled persona, Norris even made multiple cameos in projects where he simply played a version of himself. One of his last big-screen appearances was in 2012’s “The Expendables 2,” where he played opposite fellow action icons Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham and Jet Li.
Legacy
With the help of then President George H. W. Bush in 1990, Norris founded Kickstart Kids, an award-winning in-school character development program that uses karate to “teach life-changing values” to middle school and high school students.
“KSK has prevented more crime and freed up more prison space than any program I have seen in 35 years of law enforcement,” Tarrant County, Texas Sheriff, Bill E. Waybourn, said about the program.
Norris once said that he believed if everyone knew karate, there would be less violence in the world. “Everyone thinks of karate strictly as a physical application, but what it does is — it strengthens you mentally, psychologically, and emotionally, because most violence is stemmed from insecurity, trying to prove something to yourself,” he told Letterman. “And when a person develops this inner security, and this goal, seeking knowledge that the martial arts teaches you to do, it overcomes a lot of violent confrontations.”
By Rebekah Riess
