Chuck Norris
Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris is an American martial artist and actor. He is a black belt in Karate, Taekwondo, Tang Soo Do, Brazilian jiu jitsu, and judo. After serving in the United States Air Force, Norris won many martial arts championships and later founded his own discipline, Chun Kuk Do. Shortly after, in Hollywood, Norris trained celebrities in martial arts. Norris went on to appear in a minor role in The Wrecking Crew. Friend and fellow martial artist Bruce Lee invited him to play one of the main villains in The Way of the Dragon. While Norris continued acting, friend and student Steve McQueen suggested he take it seriously. Norris took the starring role in the action film Breaker! Breaker!, which turned a profit. His second lead, Good Guys Wear Black, became a hit, and he soon became a popular action film star.
Norris went on to star in a streak of bankable independently made action and martial arts films, with A Force of One, The Octagon, and An Eye for an Eye. This made Norris an international celebrity. He went on to make studio films like Silent Rage with Columbia, Forced Vengeance with MGM, and Lone Wolf McQuade with Orion. This led Cannon Films to sign Norris into a multiple film deal, starting with Missing in Action, which proved to be very successful and launched a trilogy. Norris started to work almost exclusively on high-profile action films with Cannon, becoming its leading star during the 1980s. Films with Cannon include Invasion U.S.A, The Delta Force, and Firewalker, among others. Apart from the Cannon films, Norris made Code of Silence, which was received as one of his best films. In the 1990s, he played the title role in the long-running CBS television series Walker, Texas Ranger from 1993 to 2001. Until 2006, Norris continued taking lead roles in action movies. His last appearance in a major film release was in The Expendables 2.
Throughout his film and TV career, Norris diversified from his regular endeavors. As a writer, he is a New York Times bestselling author of books on martial arts, exercise, philosophy, his conservative politics, Christian western fiction, self-help, and biographies, and he also serves as a columnist for WorldNetDaily. Norris also appeared in several commercials endorsing several products, most notably being one of the main spokespersons for the Total Gym infomercials. In 2005, Norris found new fame on the Internet when Chuck Norris facts became an Internet meme documenting humorous, fictional, and often absurd feats of strength and endurance. Although Norris himself did not produce the "facts", he was hired to endorse many products that incorporated Chuck Norris facts in advertising. The phenomenon resulted in six books, some of them New York Times bestsellers, as well as two video games, and several appearances on talk shows, such as Late Night with Conan O'Brien, in which he read the facts or participated in sketches.
Early life
Norris was born in Ryan, Oklahoma, on March 10, 1940, to Wilma Lee and Ray Dee Norris, who was a World War II Army soldier, mechanic, bus driver, and a truck driver. His mother was of Irish descent and his father of German, British, and distant Cherokee descent. Norris was named after Carlos Berry, his father's minister. He was the oldest of three brothers, the younger two being Wieland and Aaron. Wieland Norris informed his eldest sibling he would not reach his 27th birthday; this prediction came true in 1970 when he was killed in the Vietnam War. When Norris was 16 years old, his parents divorced, and he later relocated to Prairie Village, Kansas and then to Torrance, California with his mother and brothers.Norris has described his childhood as downbeat. He was nonathletic, shy, and scholastically mediocre. His father, Ray, worked intermittently as an automobile mechanic, and went on drinking binges that lasted for months at a time. Embarrassed by his father's behavior and the family's financial plight, Norris developed a debilitating introversion that lasted for his entire childhood.
Career
United States Air Force and martial arts breakthrough (1958–1969)
Norris joined the United States Air Force as an Air Policeman in 1958 and was sent to Osan Air Base, South Korea. It was there that Norris acquired the nickname "Chuck" and began his training in Tang Soo Do. When he returned to the United States, he continued to serve as an AP at March Air Force Base in California. He was discharged from the Air Force in August 1962 with the rank of Airman first class. Following his military service, Norris applied to be a police officer in Torrance, California, opening up a martial arts studio while on the waiting list. He also began participating in martial arts competitions. Norris was defeated in his first two tournaments, dropping decisions to Joe Lewis and Allen Steen, and lost three rounds at the International Karate Championships to Tony Tulleners. However, he improved enough that he ended up scoring victories over the likes of Vic Moore, eventually winning the 1967 tournament of karate as he defeated seven opponents until finally triumphing over his ultimate fight with Skipper Mullins. On June 24 of that year, Norris was declared champion at the S. Henry Cho's All-American Karate Championship at the Madison Square Garden, taking the title from Julio LaSalle and defeating Joe Lewis. During this time, Norris worked for the Northrop Corporation and opened a chain of karate schools; his official website lists Steve and Chad McQueen, Bob Barker, Priscilla Presley, and Donny and Marie Osmond as celebrity clients.Norris suffered the tenth and final loss of his career in early 1968, losing an upset decision to Louis Delgado. On November 24, he avenged his defeat to Delgado and by doing so won the Professional Middleweight Karate champion title, which he then held for six consecutive years. On April 1, Norris successfully defended his All-American Karate Championship title, in a round-robin tournament, at the Karate tournament of champions of North America. Again that year, Norris won for the second time the All-American Karate Championship. It was the last time Norris participated and retired undefeated. While competing, Norris met Bruce Lee, who at the time was known for the TV series The Green Hornet. They developed a friendship, as well as a training and working relationship.
In 1969, during the first weekend of August, Norris defended his title as world champion at the International Karate Championship. The competition included champions from most of the fifty states as well as half a dozen from abroad who joined for the preliminaries. Norris retained his title and won Karate's triple crown for the most tournament wins of the year, he also got the Fighter of the Year award by Black Belt magazine. Around this time, Norris made his acting debut in the Matt Helm spy spoof The Wrecking Crew.
Early roles and breakthrough (1970–1978)
In 1972, Norris acted as Bruce Lee's nemesis in the widely acclaimed martial arts movie Way of the Dragon. The film grossed over 5.3 million at the Hong Kong box office, beating previous records set by Lee's own films, The Big Boss and Fist of Fury, making it the highest-grossing film of 1972 in Hong Kong. The Way of the Dragon went on to gross an estimated US$130 million worldwide. The film is credited with launching him toward stardom.In 1973, Norris played a role in Jonathan Kaplan's The Student Teachers.
In 1974, actor Steve McQueen, who was his martial art student and friend at the time, saw his potential and encouraged him to begin acting classes at MGM. That same year, he played the supporting role of the main antagonist in Lo Wei's Yellow Faced Tiger. Norris plays a powerful drug king in San Francisco, where he dominates the criminal world including the police department. He is eventually challenged by a young police officer who stands up to corruption. The film played theatrically in the United States in 1981 as Slaughter in San Francisco. It was noticed that it was an older, low-budget film announcing Norris as the lead. The film played as a double-bill to other action and genre film. It was described as a low-budget martial arts actioner taking advantage of Norris's fame.
In 1975, Norris wrote his first book Winning Tournament Karate on the practical study of competition training for any rank. It covers all phases of executing speedy attacks, conditioning, fighting form drills, and one-step sparring techniques.
Norris's first starring role was 1977's Breaker! Breaker! He chose it after turning down offers to do several martial-arts films. Norris decided that he wanted to do films that had a story and where the action would take place when it is emotionally right. The low-budget film turned out to be very successful.
In 1978, Norris starred in Good Guys Wear Black. He considers it to be his first significant lead role. No studio wanted to release it, so Norris and his producers four-walled it, renting the theaters and taking whatever money came in. The film did very well; shot on a $1 million budget, it made over $18 million at the box office. Following years of kung fu film imports from Hong Kong action cinema during the 1970s, most notably Bruce Lee films followed by Bruceploitation flicks, Good Guys Wear Black launched Norris as the first successful homegrown American martial-arts star, having previously been best known as a villain in Lee's Way of the Dragon. Good Guys Wear Black distinguished itself from earlier martial-arts films by its distinctly American setting, characters, themes, and politics, a formula that Norris continued to develop with his later films.