Trivia

Recently received his Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under instructor Jean Jacques Machado.

Was considered for the role of Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon.

Norton was a former bodyguard for Rod Stewart, James Taylor, David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac and other famous personalities.

Trained gold medalist Kurt Thomas in martial arts for their film together, Gymkata (1985), and worked as one of the movie's fight choreographers.

Linda Ronstadt is one of the rock music stars who encouraged him to pursue work as an actor in the movies.

Accomplished martial artist

Did extensive television work in the 1990s as guest star, second unit director and stunt coordinator on the syndicated series The New Adventures of Robin Hood (1997).

Fighting Stars Magazine ranked Norton's climactic fight with Chuck Norris in The Octagon (1980) as #13 on its list of the 25 greatest fight scenes of all time.

He lost 18 pounds while shooting a fight scene with Sammo Kam-Bo Hung that took three weeks to complete in Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars (1985), aka "Twinkle, Twinkle Lucky Stars".

He directs his signature line, "Painful?", in his early films to fight opponents downed by his punch including Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, his co-star and director in several Hong Kong-based productions.

Has a twin sister named Pamela, and an older brother named Adrian.

Two Australian-based martial arts films that Richard Norton surprisingly did not appear in given his connections to the Australian martial arts scene in the 1970s were Stoner in the Australian-filmed sequences and The Man from Hong Kong (though he appeared as himself in ABBA The Movie).