Chuck Norris, American actor and martial arts champion, dies at 86

Hollywood mourns one of its champions. His brave fighter, who knew both how to play karateka in Dragon’s Fury like the modern-day cowboy in Walker, Texas Rangers. Chuck, the nickname he bore since his military service in the US Air Force in the late 1950s, died Thursday morning at the age of 86.

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He said he was invincible, people ended up believing him immortal. Carlos Ray Norris, the name given to him by his parents of Native American and Irish descent at birth, was a badass in front of and behind the camera. His 1.84 meter height, his blond hair and his athletic physique made each of his fictional characters ever more powerful. From his first major role in Dragon’s Fury (1972), alongside his friend Bruce Lee, the superman Chuck demonstrates the extent of his karateka talents. He, the great champion of this discipline, who reached the world summits between 1968 and 1974. The ten minutes of confrontation in the Coliseum between Lee and Chuck, punctuated by a knockout. of Tang on Colt, will leave an impression. Action film aficionados will rate them as one of the most memorable of the genre.

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Action Figure

Chuck Norris’ performance in Bruce Lee’s feature film is noticed by many producers. After operating in the US Air Force until 1962, then winning around a hundred fights on the tatami, Chuck Norris now concentrates on his new career in Hollywood. He plays on his qualities. Determined to succeed in his entry into this closed and complex industry, he listened to the advice of a certain Steve McQueen who, in 1974, encouraged him to take drama lessons at the MGM Studio. His training allowed him, three years later, to land the leading role in Breakersby Don Hulette. His interpretation of J. D. Dawes, a truck driver destined to fight alone against everyone, will confirm his status as an action movie star.

At the movies, Chuck Norris often has fun. His roles are confusing, sometimes excessive. He becomes the figure of the nanar. His fights are so crazy that they become comical. With his aviator glasses and his big muscular arms, he and his commando Black Tigers are trapped in Vietnam in 1978. As is often the case, Chuck will survive. The actor can also infiltrate within a terrorist organization in The Fury of the Righteous in 1980, where he shared the screen with Karen Carlson and Lee Van Cleef. True to his killer kick, he plays vengeful cop Sean Kane in the Tooth for toothby Steve Carver the following year.

Among his thirty roles, film fans will especially remember his incarnation of Colonel James Braddock, whom he played three times in the saga Missing. Chuck Norris’s assault rifle will have knocked down more than one man. In addition to his stunts, the actor will prove to be a king of replicas. Particularly during the exchange with the boss Littlejohn who warns him to “pay attention to where he steps”. “I put my feet where I want, Littlejohn, and it’s often in my face”Braddock replies before knocking him out. Decades later, the character has been declined in GIFs, memes, emoticons, shorts on the networks…

Chuck Norris will have served action cinema. His experience of tatami, tangsudo, taekwondo, judo and ju-jitsu have allowed him to build a very personal filmography. The impregnable fighter had everything of the American. Behind the camera, he advocated for gun ownership and actively supported the Republican Party. He is one of the rare Hollywood personalities to have supported Donald Trump during his first presidential campaign. And also one of the few to have expressed his admiration for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Star of Walker, Texas Rangers

Unfortunately for Chuck Norris, his career in the seventh art will not last forever. Even if he continued to tour, the actor only landed six roles after the turn of the millennium. His latest being an incarnation of himself, in 2024, in Zombie Plane by Lav Bodnaruk and Michael Mier. Chuck turned to the small screen at the end of the 1980s, becoming the star of a cult series for an entire generation. Under the direction of his brother Arron Norris, he dons the hat, cowboy boots and stetson of Captain Cordell Walker, a champion martial arts ranger for Walker, Texas Rangers . The series, broadcast on CBS, was a huge success and has nine seasons to date. In France, it was broadcast for a long time on TF1, TMC and C8.

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Naturally, among his last appearances on the big screen, we find him on the poster of The Expendables, alongside Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Jason Statham. The series of films with random success, which aims to be a tribute to the action films of the end of the last century, would have been incomplete without him.