Chuck Norris

From the Air Force to tang soo do

Carlos Ray Norris was born on 10 March 1940 in Ryan, Oklahoma. He joined the US Air Force in 1958 as an air policeman and was posted to Osan Air Base in South Korea. There he picked up the nickname Chuck and began training in tang soo do, a Korean style of the Moo Duk Kwan lineage, under Shin Jae-chul. He finished his service at March Air Force Base in California and was discharged in August 1962.

He opened a studio in Torrance, then a small chain of karate schools, while working for Northrop. Steve McQueen and his son Chad were among his students. In 1966 he founded American Tang Soo Do. He later trained in taekwondo, earning a 6th dan in 1976 and an 8th dan in 1997, and in Brazilian jiu-jitsu with the Machado brothers.

A champion of the American circuit

He lost his first two bouts, to Joe Lewis and Allen Steen. On 24 June 1967 he won S. Henry Cho's All-American Karate Championship at Madison Square Garden. On 24 November 1968 he took the Professional Middleweight Karate Championship. He has since been billed as the undefeated world professional middleweight champion from 1968 to 1974, although no complete record exists and those titles belonged to the American circuits of the time, not to an international federation. In 1969 he won karate's triple crown and Black Belt magazine named him Fighter of the Year.

From Bruce Lee to Cannon

After an uncredited extra part in The Wrecking Crew (1968), he played Colt in Way of the Dragon (1972). Bruce Lee, whom he knew from tournaments and trained with, fights him in the final duel, set in Rome's Colosseum. The film made him known to a wide audience.

His first lead came in Breaker! Breaker! (1977), which he also choreographed. Good Guys Wear Black (1978), distributed by its own producers, took more than $18 million, A Force of One (1979) about $20 million and The Octagon (1980) almost $19 million. Norris became the first homegrown American martial arts star to fill theatres. Lone Wolf McQuade (1983), in which he plays a lone Texas Ranger, later inspired his TV series.

With Cannon Films he made Missing in Action (1984) and its two sequels as Colonel Braddock, Invasion U.S.A. (1985), which he co-wrote, Code of Silence (1985), a Chicago cop thriller many rate as his best film, and The Delta Force (1986), alongside Lee Marvin.

Fighting style and legacy

On screen his fights rely on tang soo do kicking: high roundhouse and spinning kicks, thrown cleanly. It is a tournament fighter's toolkit, far from the acrobatics of Hong Kong cinema.

From 1993 to 2001 he starred in Walker, Texas Ranger on CBS for eight seasons. In 1990 he created chun kuk do, renamed the Chuck Norris System in 2015, and the United Fighting Arts Federation, which has awarded more than 3,300 black belts in the system. The Black Belt Hall of Fame credits him with a 10th degree. In 2005 he launched the World Combat League, a team-based stand-up fighting league. The Martial Arts History Museum named him one of the ten inaugural members of its Hall of Fame in 1999.

His last major film role was Booker in The Expendables 2 (2012), followed by an appearance in Agent Recon (2024). Chuck Norris died on 19 March 2026 on Kauai, Hawaii, aged 86.