Action movie star Chuck Norris dies aged 86
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LOS ANGELES: Chuck Norris, the US martial artist and Hollywood tough guy most famous for his role in the Walker, Texas Ranger television series, has died, his family said Friday (Mar 20). He was 86.
Norris died Thursday morning, the family said on Instagram, after media reports that he had been hospitalised for an undisclosed condition while on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
"To the world, he was a martial artist, actor, and a symbol of strength," the statement read. "To us, he was a devoted husband, a loving father and grandfather, an incredible brother, and the heart of our family."
The family said it wanted to keep the details of Norris's passing private, adding that "please know that he was surrounded by his family and was at peace".
Tributes quickly began pouring in.
"All of Texas mourns the passing of Chuck Norris. He was not only a martial arts champion, action icon, and the one and only Walker, Texas Ranger," said Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
"My heart and prayers are with his family. He will never be forgotten," said fellow action movie star Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Norris could be outspoken about his conservative political views, and US President Donald Trump hailed him Friday as a "great supporter".
"He was a really good, tough cookie. You didn't want to fight him," Trump, who has cultivated deep connections with mixed martial arts and its fan base, told reporters at the White House.
BIG SCREEN ICON
It was a spell at an airbase in South Korea while serving as a young man in the US Air Force that gave Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris the martial arts bug.
Acquiring a taste for tang soo do, a Korean martial art based on karate, would see Norris, born in Ryan, Oklahoma on Mar 10, 1940, propel many an opponent to the mat - and himself to screen idol status.
His epic fight with martial arts superstar Bruce Lee in the classic 1972 kung-fu movie The Way of The Dragon - which ended up grossing 1,000 times its US$130,000 budget - helped turn Norris into big- and small-screen star.
Yet Norris, who idolised John Wayne as a child, became an actor as an afterthought.
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.
By 1967, with a US karate championship title earned at Madison Square Garden under his belt, Norris was the go-to instructor for celebrities like Steve McQueen, Priscilla Presley and Donny Osmond.
The success of The Way of the Dragon four years later prompted Norris to take acting classes.
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.
CHUCK NORRIS V SUPERMAN
In 1983, he 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 their 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".
In 2017, he recovered from two cardiac arrests, then became mired in controversy two years later when he became the public face of arms company Glock, despite an epidemic of gun violence in the US.
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