Chuck Norris: Biography

American action star Chuck Norris first learned martial arts while serving in the Air Force. From 1968 through 1974, he held the world's middleweight karate championship title. During this period, he made his film debut in The Wrecking Crew (1968) and his TV bow on a 1970 episode of Room 222. Thanks to the celebrity clientèle of his Los Angeles karate school, Norris was able to make the right contacts which enabled him to embark on a starring career in films. Building a box-office following with such fast-paced (and rapidly filmed) actioners as A Force of One (1979) and Lone Wolf McQuade (1982), Norris reached his professional apex as Colonel James Braddock in the three Missing in Action films of the 1980s. Around 1987, Norris' stardom went into eclipse, thanks in part to the heady competition of Schwarzenegger, Jean Claude Van Damme, and Steven Seagal; though he still occasionally appears in films, most of his later efforts don't back their cost until they hit the video shelves. In 1986, Chuck Norris lent his name and his voice to a brief TV cartoon series, Chuck Norris' Karate Kommandos, in which, after his cartoon counterpart decimates every bad guy within 50 miles, the real Norris cautions his young audience that "violence is my last option." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide