Pat Morita
Academy Award-nominated actor Pat Morita, best known as the zen-ish Kesuke Miyagi who tutors Ralph Macchio in the 1984 hit The Karate Kid, died on November 24 at a Las Vegas hospital. The cause of death is unclear — one source stated Morita died of heart failure; another said he died of kidney failure while waiting for a kidney transplant. Morita was 73.
In a career that spanned more than 40 years, Morita played a variety of film roles in dozens of motion pictures including Every Little Crook and Nanny (1972), starring Lynn Redgrave and Victor Mature, the all-star World War II drama Midway (1976), Goodbye Paradise (1991), Gus van Sant‘s Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), and American Ninja V (1995).
He was also busy on television, in shows such as Green Acres, Happy Days, and Sanford and Son. But it is as Mr. Miyagi that he achieved the high point of his career.
Billed as Noriyuki ‘Pat’ Morita at the insistence of producer Jerry Weintraub, who wanted the California native to sound more “ethnic” (Noriyuki was his birth name), Morita went on to receive his first and only Academy Award nomination, in the best supporting actor category. (He lost to Naing S. Ngor in The Killing Fields.)
Following the 1984 blockbuster, Morita reprised the wise-old-man role in two less successful sequels, The Karate Kid Part II (1986) and The Karate Kid Part III (1989), both starring Macchio, plus a spin-off, The Next Karate Kid, which starred Hilary Swank. John G. Avildsen (who had won an Oscar for Rocky in 1976) directed the first three films; Christopher Cain handled the poorly received spin-off. (There was even a The Karate Dog (2004), directed by Bob Clark and starring Jon Voight, Simon Rex, and Chevy Chase‘s voice.)
The son of migrant fruit pickers, Morita was born in Isleton, a small community in Northern California, on June 28, 1932. After spending a large portion of his early years suffering from spinal tuberculosis in a hospital, Morita eventually recovered only to be confined in a Japanese-American internment camp in Arizona during World War II. He entered show business in earnest in the early 1950s, mostly playing comedy.
“It was both my honor and privilege to have worked with him and create a bit of cinema magic together,” Ralph Macchio said in a statement. “My life is all the richer for having known him. I will miss his genuine friendship.”
Colleen Moore and HER WILD OAT
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