American Legends: The Life of Chuck Norris

*Includes pictures *Includes Norris' own quotes about his life and career *Includes online resources, footnotes, and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents "Whatever luck I had, I made. I was never a natural athlete, but I paid my dues in sweat and concentration and took the time necessary to learn karate and become world champion." - Chuck Norris A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees? In Charles River Editors' American Legends series, readers can get caught up to speed on the lives of America's most important men and women in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known. It is not uncommon for a culture to create intricate mythologies around its combat arts champions, but those celebrity fighters who have produced enough tangible accomplishments to merit such adulation are generally limited to a few in each generation. In the second half of the 20th century, boxer Muhammad Ali commanded such reverence, and in the martial arts, two stars have primarily reestablished the entire combat genre for the international movie-going population. In terms of raw popularity, Chuck Norris represents the West. Whereas Bruce Lee developed a cinematic market by attaching scripts and formulaic plots to his masterful athleticism and martial arts skills that are still considered exotic to many Westerners, American Chuck Norris built his resume with little fanfare or sense of peripheral fantasy by studying and mastering the Korean karate form Tang Soo Do and by dominating in international competition for six consecutive years. Along the way, he came to study numerous related styles as well, attaining advanced black belt degrees in several. In a fighting career of approximately one decade, Norris was considered all but unbeatable for the last 8 years, and once his skills reached their peak, he held every significant major world title available in his weight class, as well as some without any weight distinction. Only after retirement was he redirected into the martial arts film industry set against uniquely American landscapes, where he created iconic characters and memorable combat scenes for several more decades. In contrast to Lee's fame, which emerged from a Chinese version of martial arts entertainment laced with tinges of the superhuman, Chuck Norris was karate's verismo artist, with his ch