CHUCK NORRIS

(10 March 1940 – 19 March 2026)

Chuck Norris, the American martial artist who became an actor, screenwriter and author, has died at the age of 86. He was a master of various martial arts, including karate, taekwondo, judo, jiu-jitsu and Tang Soo Do. In the 1960s he won many karate championships which led to his friendship with Bruce Lee and their working together on the choreography for The Way of the Dragon (1972), a massive hit which led to more films and television, great popularity with the general public and even a political stance that veered on heroic status.

Carlos Ray Norris was born in Ryan, Oklahoma, to Ray Norris, a World War II veteran and mechanic, and his Irish wife Wilma Scarberry. His parents divorced when he was 16 and Carlos moved around the country with his mother and brothers to Kansas and then to California. In 1958 Carlos Norris joined the US Air Force and was sent to South Korea where he became known as Chuck and where he began to train in Tang Soo Do. Back in the US, he entertained plans to be a policeman, but instead opened his own martial arts studio while also appearing in tournaments. While working for the aircraft manufacturer Northrop Corporation he opened several karate schools and acquired a number of celebrity students, including Steve McQueen, Priscilla Presley and Donny and Marie Osmond.

After a period of losing some important matches, Norris defended his All-American Karate Championship title several times before retiring undefeated in 1968. He later defended the World Karate Championship and again retired undefeated. Then he met Bruce Lee with whom he became a friend, a trainer and working colleague. In 1969 he won Karate’s triple crown, was named Fighter of the Year and made his acting debut in The Wrecking Crew spy spoof with Dean Martin as Matt Helm. He then co-starred with Bruce Lee in The Way of the Dragon, a great success in Hong Kong where it was the highest-grossing movie of 1972 and went on to make an estimated $130m worldwide. In 1974 Steve McQueen advised him to go into more films and he went on to star opposite Jennifer O’Neill in A Force of One, received top-billing in The Octagon with Lee Van Cleef, and received above-the-title billing in An Eye for an Eye with Christopher Lee, Richard Roundtree and Mako. These films found Norris turning into an international movie star and he carried on making movies, sometimes at a rate of two or three a year.

Norris always played the tough guy but never sought violence, instead becoming the pacifying element in whatever situation came along. He also turned to co-writing some of his screenplays and went on to direct too. At times he was also involved in the fight choreography, such as on Breaker! Breaker!, Good Guys Wear Black, A Force of One and The Octagon. The films that Norris will be best remembered for include Lone Wolf McQuade (1983) with David Carradine, Missing in Action (which spawned a prequel and a sequel), The Delta Force with Lee Marvin, J. Lee Thompson's Firewalker, The Hitman, and The Expendables 2 (2012) with Sly Stallone et al. His last film was Zombie Plane, made in Brisbane with Vanilla Ice, in which he played himself and which was released in Australia in 2025. Norris was also popular on television, particularly in Walker, Texas Ranger (196 episodes from 1993 to 2001), in which he starred as former Marine Sergeant Cordell Walker and which is still aired around the world.

Chuck Norris married Dianne Kay Holechek in 1958. They had been schoolmates but separated after thirty years of marriage and eventually divorced in 1989. They had two sons, Mike and Eric. Norris then met 23-year-old model Gena O’Kelley and they married in 1998 and had male twins. Norris also had a daughter, Dina, from an extramarital relationship during his service in the air force. Norris met Dina for the first time in 1990 and owned up about his daughter in his autobiography Against All Odds: My Story published in 2004.

MICHAEL DARVELL