Pat Morita
An American actor and comedian who played Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid (1984) and its sequels and was nominated for an Oscar for the role.
Quick Facts
United StatesBiography
Pat Morita was born on 28 June 1932 in Sacramento, California, and died on 24 November 2005 in Las Vegas at the age of 73. In connection with martial arts, he is known as the actor who played Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid (1984).
At two he fell ill with spinal tuberculosis and spent the following nine years mostly in hospitals; he did not learn to walk until age eleven, following extensive spinal surgery. He was then transferred to the Gila River internment camp in Arizona, where he rejoined his family. After working in the aircraft industry, he began doing stand-up comedy in Sacramento and San Francisco in the early 1960s, and later performed in Los Angeles as an opening act for singers and the comedian Redd Foxx.
He initially did not get the role of Mr. Miyagi because of his comedic background; producer Jerry Weintraub cast him only after five auditions. For the role he grew a beard and modeled the accent on his uncle. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for it and reprised the role in the 1986 and 1989 sequels. We have not found in the sources whether he trained karate himself. He later voiced the Chinese emperor in the Disney film Mulan (1998) and its sequel.
Filmography
A screen role does not mean the person actually practises the art — that is listed above.