Chuck Norris, the martial arts grandmaster and action star whose roles in “Walker, Texas Ranger” and other television shows and movies made him an iconic tough guy, sparking internet parodies and earning the admiration of presidents, died at age 86 on Friday.
As tributes pour in honoring Norris’s legacy, NBC 5 is taking a look back at his many Texas connections and the roles he played across the Lone Star State.
Honorary Texas Ranger
Norris beat up the bad guys on the popular show “Walker, Texas Ranger,” and the martial arts expert and humanitarian became one in real life.
In 2010, former Texas governor Rick Perry designated Norris and his brother, stunt coordinator and producer Aaron Norris, honorary Texas Rangers.
Norris thanked the real Rangers for their hard work to keep citizens safe and said this was one of the highest awards he could receive.
The television show, in which Norris played Texas Ranger Cordell Walker, ran for nearly a decade on CBS in the 1990s. But odes to his unscathable toughness live on thanks to one-liners — “Chuck Norris doesn’t do pushups, he pushes the earth down” — splashed across the Internet.
Perry said he and his wife, Anita, consider Norris and his wife, Gena, personal friends, as he thanked him for bringing renewed attention to Texas Rangers with his portrayal of “an iconic Ranger, a character who was observant, meticulous, and honorable in every way.”
“People may whisper about his superpowers, but the greatest power of Chuck Norris is his integrity,” he said.
Honorary Texan
The Texas Senate named Norris an honorary Texan in 2017, an especially fitting honor for the former star of “Walker, Texas Ranger.”
Norris was born in Oklahoma, but he has lived in Texas.
A conservative Christian, he campaigned for some of the state’s top Republicans, including with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz during his White House run, and with Gov. Greg Abbott in 2014.
Texas School Safety PSA Star
In 2022, Norris promoted a tool that Texas leaders leaned on in an effort to prevent the next school shooting.
Gov. Greg Abbott rolled out a public service campaign for iWatch Texas featuring the Walker, Texas Ranger star in August 2022.
In the PSA, Norris said he loves “bringing bad guys to justice.”
The reporting system allows anyone to anonymously report suspicious activities or behaviors that could indicate criminal, terrorist, or school safety-related threats.
The iWatch system was put in place after a shooting at Santa Fe High School outside Houston in 2018.
iWatch Texas PSA via Gov. Greg Abbott on YouTubeiWatch Texas PSA via Gov. Greg Abbott on YouTube
iWatch Texas PSA via Gov. Greg Abbott on YouTube
President (of Texas)
In 2009, Chuck Norris expressed his desire to run for president. Not the president of the United States, however, but the president of Texas.
The idea came to him when he joked he should run in a discussion about his frustrations with the national government on Fox News’ “The Glenn Beck Show” recently. The concept apparently stuck, and he then used this quip as a headline on a piece he published the day before his 69th birthday, for World Net Daily, balancing somewhere between byline and battle cry.
The piece used historical examples and outlined a case for why it would be acceptable to express disagreement with certain policies through force and violence. It also contained quotes from the Founding Fathers that highlighted how far Norris believed our current government had strayed from their true intentions.
“Anyone who has been around Texas for any length of time knows exactly what we’d do if the going got rough in America,” Norris said in the piece. “Let there be no doubt about that. As Sam Houston once said, ‘Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may.’”