Martial arts icon Bob Wall, who trained and acted with Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris, has died at the age of 82.
The star’s death was announced by his family on Monday (31st January) as they paid tribute to the late actor. A cause of death has not yet been confirmed.
“Bob was the greatest husband and father. Family was everything to him,” Wall’s family said in a statement to TMZ.
“He lived a remarkable life and there is a hole in our hearts that will never be filled. His spirit and legacy will live on forever within us. He was our rock.”
Wall became a 9th degree Tang Soo Do black belt under Norris, who popularised the discipline in the Western world.
In the 1970s, Wall appeared in hit movies such as Way of the Dragon and Enter the Dragon alongside martial arts master Lee.
Wall revealed in an interview years later that the pair’s iconic Enter the Dragon fight scene was very real– and resulted in Wall breaking his ribs.
“Bob, I wanna hit you, and I wanna hit you hard,” Wall said Lee had told him before they started shooting the scene in order to make the action look as real as possible.
Wall also revealed in 2017 that he had to fall on real glass during the scene, which was shot multiple times.
The actor also appeared in other hit films alongside Norris including Hero and the Terror, Code of Silence and Firewalker.
He won the US professional Karate Championship in 1970 and was the CEO and co-founder of Black Belt Inc, a famous martial arts organisation.
More recently, Wall appeared in films such as Anatomy of an Antihero and The Emissaries Movie.
