Chuck Norris

Carlos Ray Chuck Norris March 10 1940 March 19 2026 was an American martial artist and actor He was a black belt in Karate Taekwondo Tang Soo Do Brazilian jiu jitsu and judo After serving in the United States Air Force Norris won many martial arts championships and later founded his own discipline Chun Kuk Do Shortly after in Hollywood Norris trained celebrities in martial arts Norris went on to appear in a minor role in The Wrecking Crew 1968 Friend and fellow martial artist Bruce Lee invited him to play one of the main villains in The Way of the Dragon 1972 While Norris continued acting friend and student Steve McQueen suggested he take it seriously Norris took the starring role in the action film Breaker Breaker 1977 which turned a profit His second lead Good Guys Wear Black 1978 became a hit and he soon became a popular action film star Norris went on to star in a streak of bankable independently made action and martial arts films with A Force of One 1979 The Octagon 1980 and An Eye for an Eye 1981 This made Norris an international celebrity He went on to make studio films like Silent Rage 1982 with Columbia Forced Vengeance 1982 with MGM and Lone Wolf McQuade 1983 with Orion This led Cannon Films to sign Norris into a multiple film deal starting with Missing in Action 1984 which proved to be very successful and launched a trilogy Norris started to work almost exclusively on highprofile action films with Cannon becoming its leading star during the 1980s Films with Cannon include Invasion USA 1985 The Delta Force 1986 and Firewalker 1986 among others Apart from the Cannon films Norris made Code of Silence 1985 which was received as one of his best films In the 1990s he played the title role in the longrunning CBS television series Walker Texas Ranger from 1993 to 2001 Until 2006 Norris continued taking lead roles in action movies His last appearance in a major film release was in The Expendables 2 2012 Throughout his film and TV career Norris diversified from his regular endeavors As a writer he is a New York Times bestselling author of books on martial arts exercise philosophy his conservative politics Christian western fiction selfhelp and biographies and he also serves as a columnist for WorldNetDaily Norris also appeared in several commercials endorsing several products most notably being one of the main spokespersons for the Total Gym infomercials In 2005 Norris found new fame on the Internet when Chuck Norris facts became an Internet meme documenting humorous fictional and often absurd feats of strength and endurance Although Norris himself did not produce the facts he was hired to endorse many products that incorporated Chuck Norris facts in advertising The phenomenon resulted in six books some of them New York Times bestsellers as well as two video games and several appearances on talk shows such as Late Night with Conan OBrien in which he read the facts or participated in sketches Description above from the Wikipedia article Chuck Norris licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia