Pat Morita Biography
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Noriyuki "Pat" Morita (June 28, 1932 – November 24,
2005) was a Japanese-American actor best known for the roles of Arnold on the TV
show Happy Days and Mr. Miyagi in the movie The Karate Kid, for which he was
nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1984.
****
Early
life
Born in Isleton, California, the son of an
itinerant fruit worker, Morita developed spinal tuberculosis at age two and
spent the bulk of the next nine years in Northern California hospitals,
including the Shriners Hospital in San Francisco. He was for long periods
wrapped in a full body cast and was told he would never walk. The boy, often
alone and isolated, made sock puppets to entertain himself.
After a surgeon fused four vertebrae in his spine,
Noriyuki finally learned to walk again at age 11. By then, his Japanese American
family had been sent to an internment camp to be detained for the duration of
World War II. The boy was transported from the hospital directly to the camp in
Arizona to join them.
For a time after the war, the family operated
Ariake Chop Suey, a restaurant in Sacramento, California. Teenage "Nori" would
entertain customers with jokes and serve as master of ceremonies for group
dinners.
Noriyuki graduated from Armijo High School in
Fairfield, California and shortly thereafter moved back to the Sacramento area,
where he took a job with Aerojet-General, an aerospace company that designed and
manufactured rocket engines, including those for the US Navy's UGM-27 Polaris.
It was only after working his way up to head of a
computer operations department that Morita, by now a husband and father, and
also seriously overweight, decided he had taken the wrong life path. He quit and
became a standup comedian. Often billed as "the Hip Nip" in his standup act, he
became a member of the Los Angeles improvisational comedy troupe The
Groundlings.
Television and movie career
His first movie role was as a sterotypical henchman
in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Later, a recurring role as a Korean Captain
Sam Pak on the sitcom M*A*S*H helped advance the comedian's acting career.
He had a recurring role on the show Happy Days as
Matsumoto "Arnold" Takahashi, owner of the diner Arnold's. After the first
season (1975-1976), he left the popular show to star in his own sitcom called
Mr. T and Tina as an inventor named Taro Takahashi. The sitcom was placed on
Saturday nights by ABC and was quickly cancelled after a month in the fall of
1976. Morita eventually returned to Happy Days, reprising his role in the
1982-1983 season.
Morita gained worldwide fame playing wise karate
teacher Kesuke Miyagi who taught young "Daniel-san" in The Karate Kid. He was
nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as well as a Golden
Globe and reprised his role as the sensei Mr. Miyagi in three sequels. Morita
never formally practiced a martial art and most of his karate scenes were
performed by stunt double (and noted shito-ryu karate-ka) Fumio Demura. Although
he had been using the name "Pat Morita" for years, producer Jerry Weintraub
suggested that Pat be billed with his given name to sound more ethnic (see
[[1]]).
Morita went on to star as the title character in
the ABC detective show Ohara (1987-1988) and wrote and starred in the World War
II romance film Captive Hearts (1987).
Like many Asian American actors, Morita spoke
English with a perfect American accent although he was frequently typecasted
with a Japanese or Korean accent.
Death
Morita died on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 2005,
at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, of natural causes at age 73. Morita will be
buried at Palm Green Valley Mortuary and Cemetery. He is survived by his second
wife, actress Evelyn Guerrero, and three daughters from a previous marriage to
his first wife, Yuki. Yuki and their three daughters were with him at the time
of his death.
****
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URL of Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Morita
Date Article Copied:
November 28, 2005
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