“While we would like to keep the circumstances private, please know that he was surrounded by his family and was at peace,” the statement read.
Norris, a six-time undefeated World Professional Middleweight Karate Champion, became an internet phenomenon due to satirical “facts” inspired by his tough-guy persona. He had been hospitalized in Hawaii on Thursday, as reported by Variety.
Throughout his career, Norris starred in over two dozen films, often portraying silent loners, soldiers, lawmen, veterans, and All-American heroes who took on criminals, freed prisoners of war, rescued hostages, and battled terrorists.
He made his film debut in 1973, fighting martial arts legend Bruce Lee in Rome’s Colosseum in “The Way of the Dragon.” In 2012, alongside Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis, he helped defeat villain Jean-Claude Van Damme in “The Expendables 2.”
Time magazine once hailed him as “the ultimate tough guy.”
“In his strictly wham-bam B-movie genre, Norris, a former karate champion, has become the undisputed superstar,” the magazine said in 1985.
Norris became a box office sensation and TV icon, playing Sergeant Cordell Walker, a former Marine and martial arts expert, from 1993 to 2001 in “Walker, Texas Ranger.”
In 2005, Norris became an online cult figure when an American student created “Chuck Norris Facts,” jokes about his physical prowess and masculinity that went viral and inspired several books.
Popular jokes included “Chuck Norris has a mug of nails instead of coffee in the morning” and “Chuck Norris doesn’t do push-ups; he pushes the Earth down.”
AN UNLIKELY TOUGH GUY
Carlos Ray Norris was born on March 10, 1940, in Ryan, Oklahoma, the oldest of three brothers. His family later moved to California following his parents’ divorce.
He described himself as extremely quiet and introverted, attributing this to his father’s alcoholism and the family’s poverty.
“In school I was shy and inhibited,” Norris wrote in his 2004 memoir Against All Odds: My Story. “If the teacher asked me to recite something aloud in front of the class, I would just shake my head no.”
Norris was not a natural athlete and had to train exceptionally hard to achieve success in martial arts. After finishing school, he joined the US Air Force in 1958. While stationed in South Korea, he learned Tang Soo Do, a form of karate, and other martial arts.
Upon his discharge, Norris began teaching martial arts in California and won significant competitions. Actor Steve McQueen, one of his students, encouraged him to consider acting.
“He told me that I should think about projecting a presence, and never do a part that had a lot of dialogue,” Norris told The New York Times in a 1985 interview.
“He told me, ‘Movies are visual, and when you try to verbalize something, you’re going to lose the audience.'”
Norris’ films grossed millions and earned him popularity among the US military. He visited Iraq in 2006 and 2007 to show support for American troops.
In 1990, he founded Chun Kuk Do, his own martial arts discipline, and established the nonprofit organization Kickstart Kids to teach children martial arts and boost self-esteem.
A patriot, conservative, and devout Christian, he collaborated with the National Rifle Association (NRA) and contributed to WorldNetDaily, a far-right news and aggregator website.
Besides his best-selling memoir, Norris wrote The Secret of Inner Strength – My Story, a guide to self-improvement, several books on fitness and martial arts, and two novels: 2006’s The Justice Riders and its sequel, A Threat to Justice.
He was married twice and had five children.
Norris defended his films against critics who claimed they promoted violence, arguing that well-written action films can tell a story as effectively as any drama or romance.
“It’s how it’s done. I don’t advocate violence for violence’s sake,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1994. “What people hang on to is that the good guy wins in the end.”
