Chuck Norris dies at 86

Chuck Nor­ris, the mar­tial arts grand­mas­ter and ac­tion star whose roles in “Walk­er, Texas Ranger” and oth­er tele­vi­sion shows and movies made him an icon­ic tough guy — spark­ing in­ter­net par­o­dies and ado­ra­tion from pres­i­dents — has died at 86.

Nor­ris died Thurs­day, in what his fam­i­ly de­scribed as a “sud­den pass­ing.”

“While we would like to keep the cir­cum­stances pri­vate, please know that he was sur­round­ed by his fam­i­ly and was at peace,” the fam­i­ly said in a state­ment post­ed to so­cial me­dia.

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 Amer­i­can 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 hon­or.

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, Cal­i­for­nia, 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 hon­or­ably dis­charged in 1962, he worked as a file clerk for Northrop Air­craft and ap­plied to be a po­lice of­fi­cer, but was put on a wait­list. Mean­while, he opened a mar­tial arts stu­dio, which ex­pand­ed to a chain, with stu­dents in­clud­ing such stars as Bob Bark­er, Priscil­la Pres­ley, Don­ny and Marie Os­mond, and Steve Mc­Queen, whom he lat­er cred­it­ed with en­cour­ag­ing him to get in­to act­ing.

From one stu­dio to an­oth­er

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 al­so 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’ 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-Gov. Rick Per­ry award­ed him the ti­tle of hon­orary Texas Ranger. The Texas Sen­ate lat­er named him an hon­orary Tex­an.

“It’s not vi­o­lence for vi­o­lence’s sake, with no moral struc­ture,” Nor­ris told the AP in 1996, speak­ing about the show. “You try to por­tray the prop­er mean­ing of what it’s about — fight­ing in­jus­tice with jus­tice, good vs. bad. … It’s en­ter­tain­ing for the whole fam­i­ly.”

Nor­ris al­so made a sur­prise comedic ap­pear­ance as a de­ci­sive judge in the fi­nal match of the 2004 movie “Dodge­ball.” He on­ly on oc­ca­sion had tak­en 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.

Chuck Nor­ris: the man, the meme, the leg­end

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 craze, putting to­geth­er “The Of­fi­cial Chuck Nor­ris Fact Book,” which com­bined his fa­vorites 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.”

That book raised mon­ey for a non­prof­it he found­ed with Pres­i­dent George H.W. Bush that pro­mot­ed mar­tial arts in­struc­tion for kids.

The in­ten­tion­al­ly out­landish state­ments fea­tured in the 2008 Re­pub­li­can pres­i­den­tial pri­ma­ry, when Nor­ris en­dorsed Arkansas Gov. Mike Huck­abee and shot an ad play­ing on the “Chuck Nor­ris facts.”

“Chuck Nor­ris doesn’t en­dorse. He tells Amer­i­ca how it’s go­ing to be,” Huck­abee said in the cam­paign ad.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s sup­port­ers lat­er pro­mot­ed Trump Facts in the same vein, and po­lit­i­cal pun­dits tried it as well, de­scrib­ing the com­man­der-in-chief’s de­ci­sion to seize Venezuela’s sit­ting pres­i­dent, Nico­las Maduro, as a “Chuck Nor­ris Mo­ment,” and its ini­tial ef­fect on oil prices a “Chuck Nor­ris Pre­mi­um.”

Nor­ris was out­spo­ken about his Chris­t­ian be­liefs and his sup­port for gun rights, and backed po­lit­i­cal can­di­dates for years — he even went sky­div­ing with Bush for the for­mer pres­i­dent’s 80th birth­day. As for Trump, Nor­ris en­dorsed him in the 2016 gen­er­al elec­tion and wrote guest columns prais­ing him with­out ex­plic­it­ly en­dors­ing him the in the days be­fore the 2020 and 2024 elec­tions.

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.

By JONATHAN MAT­TISE