‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ Star Was 86

Chuck Norris, the martial arts champion and karate school teacher who jumped fist- and feetfirst into stardom with 1980s action movies like Missing in Action and the long-running CBS drama Walker, Texas Ranger, has died. He was 86.

Norris died suddenly Thursday in Hawaii after being hospitalized, his family announced in a statement.

“He lived his life with faith, purpose, and an unwavering commitment to the people he loved. Through his work, discipline, and kindness, he inspired millions around the world and left a lasting impact on so many lives,” they said.

“While our hearts are broken, we are deeply grateful for the life he lived and for the unforgettable moments we were blessed to share with him. The love and support he received from fans around the world meant so much to him, and our family is truly thankful for it. To him, you were not just fans, you were his friends.”

They noted that they “would like to keep the circumstances private … please know that he was surrounded by his family and was at peace.”

Unlike some other actors who boasted of their fighting prowess, Norris was the real deal, a holder of black belts in such disciplines as karate, Tang Soo Do and taekwondo and a guy who trained with Bruce Lee — and battled him in The Way of the Dragon (1972). Onscreen, he often portrayed loners, and like one of his heroes, John Wayne, he would only resort to violence when there was no other choice.

Encouraged by Steve McQueen to become an actor — he had given the Bullitt star private karate lessons for several years — Norris had his breakthrough with the Sergio Leone-inspired Lone Wolf McQuade (1983), playing a Texas Ranger who faces off against an arms merchant/martial arts master (David Carradine).

Norris then signed with the Cannon Group, led by producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, and became a huge money-maker for the mini-studio. He starred as Col. James Braddock, a former POW who returns to Vietnam to rescue captured soldiers, in Missing in Action (1984), and though the film was blasted by critics, it was beloved by audiences, spawning a 1985 prequel and 1988 sequel.

“Steve McQueen once said, ‘Look, the critics can praise you to the end of the world, but if your movie makes $2, you’re not going to work. So the thing is, as long as people come and see your movies, you’re going to keep working, no matter what the critics say,’” he recalled in an interview for Black Belt magazine. “So when I got crucified by the critics, I’d try to keep that in mind.”

Norris then continued his hot streak with Code of Silence (1985), Invasion U.S.A. (1985), Firewalker (1986) and The Delta Force (1986), which also led to a follow-up in 1990.

Walker, Texas Ranger, created by Al Ruddy, Leslie Greif, Paul Haggis and Christopher Canaan at Cannon Television, debuted in April 1993 and ran for nine seasons and about 200 episodes, plus a 2005 telefilm. Norris played the soft-spoken Cordell Walker, a U.S. Marine turned Texas Ranger on the series that evoked the feel of a classic Western that also aired on Saturday nights on CBS — Gunsmoke.

The CW in December 2020 unveiled a new Walker series, starring Jared Padalecki, and it lasted four seasons.

The oldest of three boys, Carlos Ray Norris was born on March 10, 1940, in Ryan, Oklahoma, not far from the Texas border. His father, Ray, was a mechanic and a trucker, and his mother, Wilma, did odd jobs to help his poor family get by. “Genetically speaking, I am equal parts Irish and Native American,” he wrote in his 2004 memoir, Against All Odds: My Story.

His father had a drinking problem and often left the family for long stretches, so Norris found his male role models in Wayne, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers at the movie theater.

“I determined that I would grow up one day to be like them,” he wrote. “Their behavior in their films was governed by the ‘Code of the West’ — loyalty, friendship and integrity. They were unselfish and did what was right even when the risk was great. Years later I would recall those Western heroes when I developed the kind of character I wanted to play as an actor.”

His family moved often, eventually settling in Southern California in 1950, and Norris graduated from North Torrance High School before enlisting in the U.S. Air Force. One of the guys in his barracks called him Chuck, and the nickname stuck.

Norris began to study judo and Tang Soo Do — the art of “empty-hand” fighting that uses feet and hands as weapons — while stationed as a military policeman at Osan Air Base in South Korea. As he developed his skills, he mixed in other forms to invent his own fighting style that he would call Chun Kuk Do.

After his military discharge in 1962 — he was by then a first-degree black belt in Tang Soo Do and a third-degree brown belt in judo — Norris worked as a file clerk for the defense contractor Northrop Corp. while moonlighting as a karate instructor. As he waited to take an exam to become a cop, he taught in his mom’s backyard, then took out a loan to open his first karate school, in Torrance. He also fought competitively, with a reported record of 65-5, and won six world karate championships.

Norris met Lee during a tournament at Madison Square Garden in 1967, and the two became friends. Lee, serving as an adviser on The Wrecking Crew (1968), then hired Norris to play a bodyguard in the Matt Helm movie that starred Dean Martin.

The two lost touch after Lee moved to Hong Kong to pursue his movie career, but they would reunite for an epic brawl within the bowels of the Roman Colosseum in The Way of the Dragon.

Norris opened more karate schools around Los Angeles — the Chuck Norris Karate School received a credit in the fight-filled Dolemite (1975) — and gave private lessons to the likes of Bob Barker (who broke a couple of his ribs during one workout), Priscilla Presley and McQueen.

When Norris retired from competition in 1974, McQueen urged him to go into acting: “You either have a certain presence that comes across on the screen, or you don’t. I think you may have it. I strongly suggest that you give it a try.”

He did some fighting in Slaughter in San Francisco (1974); played a trucker looking for his brother in Breaker! Breaker! (1977) while employing some of his former black-belt students in the cast; and starred as CIA commando John T. Booker in Good Guys Wear Black (1978), which also featured James Franciscus, Dana Andrews and Anne Archer and turned a surprising profit.

After showing off his skills in A Force of One (1979), The Octagon (1980) and An Eye for an Eye (1981), Norris starred as a sheriff who battles a mentally ill man with superhuman powers in Columbia Pictures’ Silent Rage (1982), his first movie released by a major studio.

Norris said he had turned down about a dozen television offers before he was approached about Walker. “I liked the idea of a modern-day Western story,” he said in an interview in the mid-1990s. “It had the action that I wanted, it had the inner relationships with the people that are necessary for a series, and it had the humor with the characters that I was involved with.”

Norris got physical in cartoon form in the syndicated series Karate Kommandos in 1986, starred as a secret agent in two President’s Man telefilms for CBS and more recently appeared in movies including Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004) and Expendables 2 (2012).

His fans had fun creating “Chuck Norris Facts” about his toughness, like: “When the boogeyman goes to sleep, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris”; “When Chuck Norris crosses the street, the cars have to look both ways”; and “People wanted to add Chuck Norris to Mount Rushmore, but the granite was not tough enough for his beard.”

He authored several books, including 1987’s The Secret of Inner Strength, 1996’s The Secret Power Within: Zen Solutions to Real Problems and 2008’s Black Belt Patriotism, and he founded the team-based World Combat League in 2005.

His youngest brother, Aaron, a stuntman and karate expert in his own right, directed and produced episodes of Walker as well as several of Norris’ films. (The family’s middle son, Wieland, was killed in action in Vietnam.)

In 2023, it was announced that he had settled a suit against CBS and Sony Pictures alleging he had been shortchanged out of at least $30 million in profits from Walker, Texas Ranger.

Survivors include his second wife, Gena, whom he married in 1998, and his children, Mike, Dina, Eric (a stunt coordinator who also directed Walker episodes), Danilee and Dakota.

In the 1990s interview, Norris acknowledged that his onscreen work was violent, but it’s “moral structure” made everything OK.

“When you are fighting good against evil, when the good guys are taking on the bad guys and winning, then I think that’s good,” he said. “Unfortunately in our society, in reality, that’s not always the case. … It’s nice to be able for do movies where people say, ‘This is what should happen, this is the way it should be in real life.’ That’s why I think I’m so successful.”