Facts about Chuck Norris
Chuck Norris Biography
Chuck Norris was the one-time world karate champion who became much better known as an action-adventure star in the movies and on TV in the 1980s and beyond.
Raised in Oklahoma and California, Norris discovered martial arts while he was stationed in Korea while serving in the U.S. Air Force (1958-62). In the early 1960s, he taught karate in southern California, where celebrity connections led to roles in the Dean Martin movie The Wrecking Crew (1968) and the Bruce Lee movie Return of the Dragon (1973).
A six-time world karate champion, Norris retired from competition in 1974 and pursued a film career. He starred in a series of low-budget action films, including Game of Death (1979) and A Force of One (1979), before achieving mainstream success with 1984’s Missing in Action.
Norris the actor, like Norris the karate champion, was known for his kicking and punching. Nonetheless, he made more than two dozen movies and he spent eight seasons on TV as Walker, Texas Ranger (1993-2001). Chuck Norris’s other feature films included Lone Wolf McQuade (1983), Delta Force (1986) and The Hitman (1991).
An outspoken Republican and a Christian, he wrote a column for the online news site World Net Daily and was the founder of the Kick Drugs Out of America Foundation (now known as KICKSTART), a youth program that used martial arts to build “strong moral character.”
Extra credit
In his early days, Norris taught karate to Bob Barker and Donny and Marie Osmond… Chuck Norris was of Irish and Cherokee descent… His brother, Aaron Norris, directed several of his films, including Braddock: Missing in Action III (1988) and Delta Force 2: The Colombian Connection (1990)… Like model Christie Brinkley, Norris was a pitchman for Total Gym exercise machines… Chuck Norris endorsed Republican Mike Huckabee for the 2008 presidential election, appearing in a series of funny ads that got wide play on the Internet.