“He was not only a martial arts champion, action icon, and the one and only Walker, Texas Ranger.”
Fellow action movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme said: “My heart and prayers are with his family. He will never be forgotten.”
Big screen icon
Born in Ryan, Oklahoma on March 10, 1940, Carlos Ray “Chuck” Norris took up martial arts while serving in the US Air Force in South Korea.
He left the Air Force in 1962 and set up a martial arts studio in Los Angeles, finding his calling in teaching and delivering roundhouse kicks.
His acting debut came with a cameo in a 1968 Dean Martin film, The Wrecking Crew. Four years later, his epic fight with the kung-fu superstar Bruce Lee in The Way of The Dragon helped turn Norris into an icon on big and small screen alike.
A slew of leading roles in karate films followed, from a US commando in Good Guys Wear Black, an all-American riposte to a slew of Hong Kong action flicks harnessing Lee’s fame, to the action horror feature Silent Rage.
US actor Chuck Norris built a movie career as an action hero. but was most famous for his role as Walker, Texas Ranger. Photo / AFP
Norris v Superman
As his acting career grew, he became a legendary martial arts figure, winning six world professional middleweight karate championships from 1968 to 1974 and earning black belts in multiple disciplines.
In 1983, Norris slipped into the role of a taciturn Texas ranger waging war against an arms dealer in Lone Wolf McQuade, which provided the template for the cult TV series Walker, Texas Ranger.
The show ran for eight seasons and spawned countless action-man jokes and memes, one being that Chuck Norris and Superman had a fight, with the loser (Superman) forced to wear his underpants on the outside.
The success of the bearded, ass-kicking Ranger marked a stunning reversal of fortune for Norris, who grew up a shy, unathletic child, who “used to daydream about being strong… to beat up the bullies”.
An evangelical Christian, he was born into a family of three boys raised mainly by their Irish mother after her divorce from their alcoholic father.
He had two sons from his first marriage to his high school sweetheart Dianne Holechek, which lasted 30 years, and a son and a daughter with his second wife Gena O’Kelley.
Norris also had a daughter from an affair during his first marriage.
A dyed-in-the-wool Republican, he urged his compatriots to vote out Barack Obama in 2012. A year later, he offered his bare-chested support to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu in a video.
On Friday, Netanyahu called Norris “a great friend of Israel and a close personal friend”.
He added: “Chuck brought martial arts and the warmth of his character to millions around the world.”
In 2017, Norris recovered from two cardiac arrests. He was mired in controversy two years later by becoming the public face of arms company Glock, despite an epidemic of gun violence in the United States.
– Agence France-Presse