Richard Norton

Richard Norton's first screen credit is almost too perfect: he appears in ABBA: The Movie in 1977 as himself, the band's bodyguard. That was the job before the career. He was an Australian martial artist with belts stacked across several systems, a fifth dan in Goju-ryu karate, a sixth in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, an eighth in Chun Kuk Do and a level six in American kickboxing, and he worked security in the music business before anyone thought to put him on a screen and let him fight.

The fighting started almost at once. The Octagon in 1980 and Forced Vengeance in 1982 cast him as the man the American star has to get through, and Gymkata and American Ninja both followed in 1985. His better work is in Hong Kong, where the choreography was harder and the camera sat much closer: Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars and Millionaires' Express with Sammo Hung, then City Hunter in 1993 and Mr. Nice Guy in 1997 opposite Jackie Chan. He was one of very few Western performers those productions trusted to keep up at that speed.

The nineties took him into direct-to-video, through CyberTracker, Direct Hit and Black Thunder, where he was usually the best thing on the tape. The last act was better than that stretch deserved. He spent years as a fight choreographer and stunt coordinator, and he turns up in Mad Max: Fury Road in 2015 and again in Furiosa in 2024 as the Prime Imperator, which means a career that began guarding a Swedish pop group ended inside two of the best-made action films of the century. He died in 2025.