Chuck Norris, the martial arts champion who became a cult action star and led the hit series "Walker, Texas Ranger," has died at the age of 86.
"To the world, he was a master of martial arts, an actor and a symbol of strength. To us, he was a dedicated husband, a caring father and grandfather, an incredible brother and the heart of our family," the family said 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 mark on many lives."
Even from Čačak
According to the official biography, Carlos Ray Norris was born on March 10, 1940 in Ryan, a small town with about 800 inhabitants in Oklahoma. In Serbia, however, these data are not widely believed, "Time" was written. On some forums, you can find claims that Norris was actually born and spent his earliest childhood in Serbia, in the village of Lugovi near Čačak. He got the nickname Chuck at school shortly after moving to Oklahoma - from "Cacak" ("I'm from Čačak"), which was a funny word hard to pronounce for Americans, so "Chak" was born.
Anyway, in Ryan, Oklahoma, Chuck's father Ray Norris drove trucks and buses and worked as a mechanic trying to support his three sons and wife Wilma. At some point he got drunk and was less and less at home. When Chuck was 16, Ray and Wilma divorced, and Chuck and his mother moved first to Kansas, then to California. He felt sorry for his father, he says.
No one in that period had any idea what would become of Chuck. He seemed quite average - he didn't stand out in school, he didn't play sports, he was shy. Children bullied him because of his strange appearance - a red-haired half-Indian - and he fantasized about beating them.
At the age of 18, he joined the US Air Force. He was sent to South Korea at the Osan military base. There he learned the martial art of tang-su-do - he trained "from 6 in the morning to 10 at night, Monday to Friday" and practiced judo on Saturdays. In Korea, he also devised a new, hybrid Korean-American martial art he called chun-kuk-do ("The Universal Way"). Chun-kuk-do is recognizable by the kick from the spin, which Norris demonstrates in almost every one of his films.
Superhero
But even superheroes don't always have everything going their way. In various karate tournaments, Norris lost at first, but did not give up. Then, in 1968, everything got better - no one could beat him anymore, and the accolades just kept coming: karate champion in the middle category for six years in a row, the most karate tournaments won in one year, Fighter of the Year (the "Black Belt" magazine award )… He is one of the few Westerners to have earned the title of 8th Day Master Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. He ended his karate career with 182 wins, 10 losses and 2 draws, and the World Karate Federation awarded him a lifetime achievement award.
He later founded the United Martial Arts Federation, whose more than 5000 members study Chun-kuk-do. The list of famous members includes, for example, Steve McQueen and Priscilla Presley. Norris also designed a program for elementary and high school students to motivate them to give up drugs and take up martial arts.
In parallel with the construction of this competitive career, Norris began to appear in films. Some remembered him in the movie Dragon Road, where he played with Bruce Lee, and then there was Trucker Breaker, Octagon, Eye for an Eye, and the movie Missing in Action made him famous and saw two more sequels. Although Delta Squad and Top Dog did well among Tabacina fans, they are still synonymous with desperate acting - even in June of this year, Norris was declared the worst actor in the last 26 years based on the results of a vote on the website RottenTomattoes.com.
At the end of the nineties, he received increasingly bad offers: he starred in desperate films and series, spending 14 hours each on the set. Slightly better was the series Walker, Texas Ranger, in which he appeared in the role of Cordell Walker for eight years, in almost 200 episodes.
Somewhere around that time, Norris (in a specific way) returns to Serbia again. As he later told reporters, during the filming of the series Walker, the Texas Ranger, since he spent literally the whole day on the set, was no longer able to exercise. In fact, the only training he had was when he had to fight someone on the set. To maintain the appearance of a tough, muscular guy, he had to come up with something. Then even Serbia heard about "Total gym". For those who have forgotten, it is the type of exercise machine that Chuck Norris advertised on our televisions for hours and hours. As in the jokes, you couldn't escape from advertising, but for some it also provided a break for the brain from the politicians and folk who were also obsessed with television.
Patriot and believer
By this time, Chuck Norris was well into his fifties, but women were still crazy about him. He was in a second marriage and had five children, one out of wedlock. He has written books, including the autobiography Despite Everything - My Story, the novel Riders of Justice and The Black Belt of Patriotism: How to Wake Up America. He also shot a few movies - it all went very badly, but as it happens with movie stars, he still made good money.
He always appeared as a patriot and a believer (he even advocated Bible study and prayer in public schools through advertisements), and he declared that he would like to be remembered not as an actor, writer or martial arts master, but as a philanthropist. He helped veterans fighting to get the best health insurance and pension conditions (in 2001 he received the "Veteran of the Year" award from the American Veterans Association) and thus easily entered politics.
In 2008, he was involved in the presidential campaign, promoting Republican Mike Huckabee, the governor of Arkansas. The two recorded a video in which Huckabee talks about his plans. For example, he says he will secure the US border from illegal immigrants. And how will he do it? "Two words: Chuck Norris." Then Chuck Norris talks about why you should vote for governor, and Huckabee tells jokes about Norris. Music from cowboy movies plays in the background, and the ad ends with Norris punching the camera and saying "Approved by Chuck Norris."
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