Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris is an American martial artist and actor. He is a black belt in 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 spy film 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 was born in Ryan, Oklahoma, on March 10, 1940, to Wilma (née Scarberry) and Ray Dee Norris, who was a World War II Army soldier, mechanic, bus driver, and a truck driver. Norris has stated that he has Irish and Cherokee roots. Norris was named after Carlos Berry, his father's minister. He was the oldest of three brothers, the younger two being Wieland and Aaron. Wieland Norris informed his eldest sibling he would not reach his 27th birthday; this prediction came true in 1970 when he was killed in the Vietnam War. When Norris was 16 years old, his parents divorced, and he later relocated to Prairie Village, Kansas and then to Torrance, California with his mother and brothers.
Norris has described his childhood as downbeat. He was nonathletic, shy, and scholastically mediocre. His father, Ray, worked intermittently as an automobile mechanic, and went on drinking binges that lasted for months at a time. Embarrassed by his father's behavior and the family's financial plight, Norris developed a debilitating introversion that lasted for his entire childhood.
