Sad news for action fans just arrived this morning as an absolute icon has passed away. Word has come from the family of Chuck Norris that the star of the Missing in Action franchise, as well as the original Walker, Texas Ranger television series, has died. He was 86 years old.
The news arrived via the actor's official Instagram account in a post written by family members. Norris was recently hospitalized in Hawaii, and according to his family died sometime yesterday. The post reads in part...
It is with heavy hearts that our family shares the sudden passing of our beloved Chuck Norris yesterday morning. While we would like to keep the circumstances private, please know that he was surrounded by his family and was at peace.
Whatever happened appears to have happened quite quickly. Norris was in his own Instagram post just last week to celebrate his 86th birthday by throwing punches. A year ago, he celebrated his 85th birthday by showing off that he was still in incredible shape.
Norris lived long enough for hoaxes regarding his death to spring up. One such hoax hit in 2020 during the global pandemic. Chuck Norris was a fairly popular figure on the internet, with "Chuck Norris jokes" that suggested the man's invincibility being a favorite of the internet for many years.
I expect we'll see some of those resurface as part of tributes to the actor in the coming days. Norris himself made reference to them when he joined the cast of Expendables 2.
Chuck Norris was an accomplished martial artist and a friend of Bruce Lee. The pair trained together in the 1960s. One of Norris' first professional film roles was in Lee's The Way of the Dragon in 1972. After several small movie roles throughout the 1970s, Norris would become an action star in his own right throughout the 1980s, thanks to franchises like Missing in Action and Delta Force.
In the 1990s, Norris would pivot from film to television, starring in Walker, Texas Ranger on CBS. The series would run for an incredible nine seasons and nearly 200 episodes. Its popularity would eventually lead to a reboot of the series, Walker, starring Jared Padalecki, that ran from 2021 to 2024, a show which Norris supported.
Read the full post from Norris' family below:
Whether it was his action movies in the 1980s or Walker, Texas Ranger in the '90s, a lot of people grew up watching Chuck Norris on the screen. While he was never the biggest action star, he arguably had a more consistent career than most of them.
That career also isn't quite over yet. Norris filmed the Australian comedy Zombie Plane with fellow '90s icon Vanilla Ice last year. The movie is expected to be released sometime later this year.
We here at CinemaBlend send our condolences to the family, friends and fans of Chuck Norris.
