Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris's History

Norris was born in Ryan, Oklahoma, the son of Wilma (Scarberry), who was eighteen when Norris was born, and Ray Norris, a truck and bus driver and mechanic.Norris's paternal grandfather (an immigrant) and maternal grandmother were Irish, while his paternal grandmother and maternal grandfather were Cherokee Native Americans.Norris was named after Carlos Berry, his father's minister.[1] He has two younger brothers, Weiland (deceased) and Aaron (a Hollywood producer). When Norris was sixteen, his parents divorced,[4] and he later relocated to Prairie Village, Kansas and then Torrance, California with his mother and brothers.[5] Norris describes his childhood as downbeat. He was nonathletic, shy, and scholastically mediocre. Other children taunted him about his mixed ethnicity, and Norris daydreamed about beating up his tormentors. Norris mentioned in his autobiography that his father had a very serious problem with drinking and "wasn't there" a lot for him growing up. Norris admitted that he loved his father but did not like him. However, he professed that he only felt pity for the man because "that was just how he was, and he missed so much."

Norris finished high school and soon married his girlfriend, Diane Holechek. He then joined the United States Air Force as an Air Policeman in 1958 and was sent to Osan Air Base, South Korea. It was in South Korea that Norris acquired the nickname Chuck and began his training in Tang Soo Do (tangsudo), an interest that would lead to black belts in that art and the founding of the Chun Kuk Do ("Universal Way") form. He also created the education associations United Fighting Arts Federation and "KickStart" (formerly "Kick Drugs Out of America"), a middle school and high school?based program intended to give at-risk children a focus point in life through the martial arts. When he returned to the United States of America, he continued to act as an AP at March Air Force Base California. Norris was discharged in August of 1962. He worked for the Northrop Corporation and opened a chain of karate schools, which Chad McQueen, Steve McQueen's son, attended.