Actors - Chuck Norris

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	Actors - Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris, (born Carlos Ray Norris Jr. on March 10, 1940), is an American martial artist, action star, and Hollywood actor.

Biography

Beginnings

A native of Ryan, Oklahoma, Norris has two younger brothers, Wieland and Aaron Norris, the latter of whom is a Hollywood producer. Norris was born to an alcoholic Cherokee Indian father and Irish mother. When Norris was ten, his parents divorced and he later relocated to Prairie Village, Kansas and then Torrance, California with his mother and brothers. Norris describes his childhood as downbeat. He was unathletic, shy, and scholastically mediocre. Kids would taunt his mixed ethnicity — wistfully he wanted to beat up his tormenters.

Norris finished high school and soon married his girlfriend, Diane Holechek. In 1958 Norris joined the United States Air Force as a Military Policeman and was sent to Osan Air Base South Korea. It was in South Korea that Norris acquired the nickname Chuck and began his training in Tang Soo Do, an interest that would segue into black belts in Tang Soo Do and Tae Kwon Do, both Korean martial arts, Shinto-Ryu Karate, and a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu; and the founding of the Chun Kuk Do ("Universal Way") form and the education association (United Fighting Arts Federation). When he returned to the states he continued to act as an MP at March Air Force Base California. Norris was discharged in August of 1962 without seeing combat. He worked for the Northrop corporation and opened a chain of karate schools, which the son of Steve McQueen, Chad McQueen attended.

Rise to fame

In 1968, Norris became Middleweight Karate champion (non-contact), a title he held for seven consecutive years. In 1969, he won Karate's triple crown for the most tournament wins of the year, and the fighter of the year award by Black Belt magazine. It was also in 1969 that Norris made his acting debut, in the Dean Martin movie The Wrecking Crew
.

In 1970, his younger brother Weiland was killed in Vietnam. Norris later dedicated his Missing in Action
films to his brother's memory.

At a martial arts demonstration in Long Beach, Norris met the soon-to-be famous Bruce Lee. In 1972, he acted as Bruce Lee's nemesis in the movie Way of the Dragon
, and in 1974, McQueen encouraged him to begin acting classes at the MGM Studio.

Norris' first starring role was 1977's Breaker! Breaker!
, and subsequent films such as The Octagon (1980), An Eye for an Eye (1981), and Lone Wolf McQuade
proved his increasing box office bankability. In 1984, Norris starred in Missing in Action
, the first of a series of POW rescue fantasies produced by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus and released under their Cannon Films banner. Also in that year, he was offered the part of the sensei of the villain dojo in the movie The Karate Kid, but declined the part. He reportedly did not want to take part in depicting martial artists in an unfavorable light. .

Over the next four years, Norris became Cannon's most prominent star, appearing in eight films, including Code of Silence, The Delta Force, and Firewalker, in which he co-starred with Academy Award winner Louis Gossett, Jr.

Walker, Texas Ranger

By the close of the 1980s, Cannon Films had faded from prominence, and Norris' star appeal seemed to go with it. He reprised his Delta Force role for MGM, who had acquired the Cannon library after the latter's Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Norris went on to make several more largely ignored films before making a transition to television. In 1993, he began shooting the series Walker, Texas Ranger, which lasted eight years on CBS and continued in heavy syndication on other channels.

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Actors - Chuck Norris

Biography

Beginnings

Rise to fame

Walker, Texas Ranger

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