The Deaths of Chuck Norris

The passing of 80s movie legend Chuck Norris was unexpected but it’s not, in fact, the first time he’s died.

Back in 2017, Chuck died twice — once during a medivac flight — following a heart attack at a hotel in Nevada, after a martial arts tournament. Paramedics brought him back to life both times.

At least, that’s what I believe. Y’see, it was the weirdest incident I’ve ever reported on.

It started with a tip sent to that troubadour of truth, The National Enquirer. The tipster said the above: Chuck, two heart attacks, medivac flight, it happened in the town of Tonopah. The person had to remain anonymous as they noted, correctly, they were breaking HIPAA laws.

Wary of the fact Norris was one of the first human memes and a magnet for tall stories, the editor called me in Los Angeles and warned to approach with trepidation. For a start, why on this earth would Chuck Norris be in Tonopah, Nevada: population 1,938?

I placed a few calls to local businesses and it didn’t take long before the receptionist at a local hotel excitedly told me her colleague knew about it and ran off to get him.

“Oh yeah, it’s the talk of the town. He was driving back from a tournament and he stopped for the night. He was on his way to Reno, like, it’s all true,” I’m paraphrasing, but the phone call went something like that.

A few searches established Norris was, indeed, in Las Vegas a few days earlier for a martial arts tournament and did usually reside near Reno, with Tonopah about halfway between. That was enough to get me in the car racing toward this mysterious little dot on the map.

Tonopah is a one street town, although it manages to pack two casinos into that little area. Its most famous draw is The Clown Motel, where I wasn’t staying. It was late Friday when I got in, the man I had talked to on the phone had finished his shift and left the hotel.

The best place at that time of night to gather information would be the town bar. I entered, there was a sunburned road mending crew who had no doubt had a long week, still in their overalls.

The bar lady was sullen, she knew nothing of Chuck Norris. Somebody in the bar played the Nine Inch Nails Version of “Hurt” and then the Johnny Cash version back-to-back on the jukebox. This wasn’t the right place.

The bar, in all its glory 

The interior of Tonopah Station 

Undeterred, I visited the Tonopah Station Hotel and Casino.  

People who work in casinos are used to dealing with hustlers, hucksters, trickers, con artists, weirdos and all sorts of other miscreants and they instinctively know to keep things quiet. Tough crowd for a reporter. I tipped the bartenders heavily and got no answers to my questions. It was 1am, so I left. 

Tonopah, in the dry July desert heat, is an old mining town and a cluster of dusty  buildings. It’s the true West, the passing of time barely noticed since the 1800s.

As it has only one main street, It wasn’t hard to find a gossip, who turned out to be a lady who ran a clothing and dry goods store. Around an hour later I was fitted up with a new denim shirt, cowboy hat and boots. More importantly, as the sweet tobacco-voiced shopkeeper had made numerous calls, I had new information.

Ya'll ready for some rootin' and/or tootin'?

Chuck was driving a van, he was with his wife and some others, he had indeed stopped at the Tonopah Station Hotel and it had, apparently, all happened late at night a couple of days previously, so I needed to talk to the staff who on the late, late shift.

Next task was to figure out who had been working that night. A little further down the street was a junk shop run by a pair of dentally-challenged old dogs who had clearly spent the last 15 years being sandblasted on the shop’s porch. Either one of them could have been cast in an 1880s gunslinger movie and not even had to change their clothes. 

I bought a broken watch ($15) to get things moving and in between chewing tobacco spits, they loosened up and told me what they’d heard, including a name, one of the staff they said worked late and would have been there Thursday. 

Around this time I started to wonder, is this real, or has the entire town got together  and are all somehow pulling my leg? Is this the ultimate Chuck Norris conspiracy? 

These boys knew exactly what made the town tick

Now that's an office

Discreet enquiries back at the casino revealed my apparent witness would be working later that night. The lady in question spoke to me and confirmed much of what I had been told. She said Chuck had arrived about 1:30am with some of his family, his wife had checked them in and they’d gone to their room. Later she’d called down panicking, saying she needed assistance, at about 5:30am. Chuck had apparently fallen in the shower and they called an ambulance. The martial arts star was rushed out the casino, his wife went with him, and that was as far as she knew. 

Was there video? Not that she could get hold of. Was there a police report? No, police weren’t involved. Did anybody else see it? Probably a couple of people, but it was the dead of night… Did I have any evidence? Nope.

What followed after this was a lot of groundhog day-type stuff. Within three days I had become a fixture around Tonopah, and people would greet me with “oh, are you the guy asking about Chuck Norris?” Word travels fast. 

...is that a Banksy?

The door of the cab has a guy burning in hell surrounded by lost souls and asks 'will this be you?' Bet the guy who drives it is a barrel of laughs.

I found out the logistics – Chuck’d have to be taken by ambulance from Tonopah to one hospital, then transferred by air. For a serious heart emergency that would be the protocol. Nobody had taken a pic of Chuck, very few had actually been in contact with him, the casino shut down every line of enquiry and request for assistance. 

Everything seemed tainted. Was this real, or were my presence and questions fueling some wild joke which was getting out of hand? One thing I will say - the story itself never changed. And it was so inconvenient, who would lie about it?    

I visited the former gold mines nearby, learned about a failing solar power project in the area. A reality show about prospectors had been through town, as had a YouTuber. Eventually I stayed at the Clown Motel for a night, why not. They even upgraded me to the “suite.” It was very run down, old, decrepit, straight out of a Rob Zombie movie, next to a 1901 cemetery. Exactly as it should be. 

Home sweet home, baby

Seriously though, no clowning around.

A few days in, I got a guy on the phone who worked at the local fire department, who were all volunteers. He said: “If it was anybody else famous, that type of thing, I wouldn’t care about the laws and I’d tell you, but Chuck Norris is someone I respect a lot, and because of that I can’t tell you anything about what happened last week, but it sure was crazy.” 

With that, my fever dream in Tonopah was over. A couple of weeks later Chuck was back out posting his fitness routines online. Nobody else ever reported on the frantic dash to save his life. I’m glad he got to live another nine years. 

I guess it was TMZ got the tip about his medical emergency this time.