Noriyuki "Pat" Morita (June 28, 1932 – November 24, 2005) was an American actor who was well-known for playing the roles of Arnold on the TV show Happy Days and Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid movie series, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1984.
Morita was born in Isleton, California, to Japanese immigrants; his father was a businessman and owned a gift shop in downtown Chinatown. Morita developed spinal ...
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Noriyuki "Pat" Morita (June 28, 1932 – November 24, 2005) was an American actor who was well-known for playing the roles of Arnold on the TV show Happy Days and Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid movie series, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1984.
Morita was born in Isleton, California, to Japanese immigrants; his father was a businessman and owned a gift shop in downtown Chinatown. Morita developed spinal tuberculosis at the age of 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. Often alone and isolated, young Morita made sock puppets to entertain himself. He performed on the streets sometimes, earning extra money.
After a surgeon fused four vertebrae in his spine, Noriyuki finally learned to walk again at the age of 11. By then, his Japanese American family had been sent to an...
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