Question: What was your relationship with Pat Morita like? Ralph Macchio: On screen, it was magic. I call it soulful magic. He and I were close, friendly.
Though the duo have only spoken highly of each other in the press, their friendship didn't kindle until years later — 2005, to be exact — when they reunited for the first time ever at Pat Morita (a.k.a. Mr. Miyagi)'s, funeral. “He caught my eye,” Ralph said in his memoir about the meeting.
He continued, "Pat was a fierce martial artist. But my memories with him are galvanized in his calm, gentle and supportive demeanor. I considered him a friend and my ultimate cheerleader.
Does Ralph Macchio, the actor from The Karate Kid, actually have any karate training in real life? Not by a long shot; though it should be noted that neither were cast to be great martial artists, and instead were hired to be amazing actors.
Ralph Macchio Opens Up About Pat Morita Almost Missing Out on the Role of Mr. Miyagi | Tonight Show
Did Ralph Macchio and William Zabka get along?
However, fans everywhere shrieked when Macchio admitted that then- and now-castmate Zabka never got along. The duo played foes—Macchio as Daniel LaRusso and Zabka as Johnny Lawrence—in the original 1984 film The Karate Kid.
Apart from four jiu-jitsu lessons when I was 10, I had no martial arts experience. Before filming, I was trained in Okinawan Gōjū-ryū karate by Pat E Johnson, who coordinated the fight scenes and played the head referee in the tournament at the end of the film.
Not before being cast as Mr. Miyagi, no. He did train with a reputable black belt for the films, a Tang Soo Do black belt/stuntman named Pat Johnson who befriended Chuck Norris at a tournament and would go on to study karate directly under Chuck Norris and teach at several of his gyms.
Ralph has a younger brother named Steven. His father is of half Italian and half Greek descent, and his mother is of Italian ancestry. In a 1980 screen test, Macchio said his family was from Naples. In 1979, Macchio graduated from Half Hollow Hills High School West in Dix Hills, New York.
Not much information is available for the salaries and backend points he earned for his original three The Karate Kid movies. It's likely that he made upwards of $200,000 at the most for the first, which was a good salary. He had already been in a bunch of TV shows and some movies, so $200,000 could have been offered.
How did Ralph Macchio react to Pat Morita's death?
Miyagi once said, “No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher. Teacher say, student do.” Well, it seems both Pat Morita and Ralph Macchio were good teachers and students. Macchio is now paying respect to the late Morita, penning an essay in tribute to his late sensei.
Noriyuki “Pat” Morita was a Japanese-American actor who was well-known for playing the role of Arnold on Happy Days and known as Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid movie series, in which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1984. Pat Morita was born in Isleton, California.
Morita gained particular fame during the 1980s for his work as Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid films. The original preferred choice was Toshiro Mifune, who had appeared in the Akira Kurosawa films Rashomon (1950), Seven Samurai (1954), and The Hidden Fortress (1958), but the actor did not speak English.
Often times he leaned into it, playing with different Asian accents, like how his Chinese accent for Arnold was supposed to be for a character originally meant to be Japanese. Many of his characters didn't have accents (Morita himself didn't have one and couldn't speak Japanese) but many did.
Question: What was your relationship with Pat Morita like? Ralph Macchio: On screen, it was magic. I call it soulful magic. He and I were close, friendly.
Mr. Miyagi was in the 882 he was in the Army Special Forces and ,”killed many Germans,” and won the Medal of Honor. He was a Sergeant and his wife died do to complications at birth, at a Japanese interment camp, called Manzamar.
If you've seen The Karate Kid film, he played the referee in the final tournament, and that was Pat Johnson. He taught all of us, trained me in goju-ryu style, Okinawan classic karate, and Pat Morita as well. He was a big part of creating all of those sequences. Most often I don't [use a stunt double].
"For Billy and I, the depth and level of our friendship and our history together has just gone beyond, just like this show has," Macchio tells PEOPLE of working on Cobra Kai with Zabka.
Macchio aged two years between The Karate Kid Part II and The Karate Kid Part III, with the actor being 24 during filming. In Cobra Kai Season 5, Macchio was 60 years old while portraying a 53-year-old Daniel LaRusso.
He was not at all experienced in martial arts prior to the filming of The Karate Kid (1984). He was actually an accomplished wrestler. However, in the years since, he has earned a black belt in Tang Soo Do.
Zabka played Johnny Lawrence, the main antagonist to the title character and protagonist played by Ralph Macchio. Zabka had no training in karate at the time but was an accomplished wrestler. Participating in the film inspired Zabka to learn the martial art of Tang Soo Do and he later earned a second–degree green belt.
