Pat Morita

Morita was born on June 28, 1932, in Isleton, California, to Japanese immigrant parents.[3] Morita's father Tamaru, born in 1897, immigrated to California from Kumamoto Prefecture on the Japanese island of Kyushu in 1915.[4] Tamaru's wife, Momoe, born in 1903, immigrated to California in 1913.[5] Noriyuki, as Pat was named, had a brother named Hideo (Harry) who was twelve years older.[6][7]

Morita developed spinal tuberculosis (Pott disease) at the age of two and spent the bulk of the next nine years in the Weimar Institute in Weimar, California, and later at the Shriners Hospital in San Francisco. For long periods, he was wrapped in a full-body cast, and he was told that he would never walk.[8] During his time at a sanatorium near Sacramento, Morita befriended a visiting priest who would often joke that, if Morita ever converted to Catholicism, the priest would rename him to "Patrick Aloysius Ignatius Xavier Noriyuki Morita".[9] Released from the hospital at age 11 after undergoing extensive spinal surgery and learning how to walk, Morita was transported from the hospital directly to the Gila River camp in Arizona to join his interned family.[10] After about a year and a half, he was transferred to the Tule Lake War Relocation Center.[11]

After World War II ended, Morita moved back to the Bay Area and he graduated from Armijo High School in Fairfield, California, in 1949. For a time after the war, the family operated Ariake Chop Suey, a restaurant in Sacramento, California,[12] jokingly described by Morita years later as "a Japanese family running a Chinese restaurant in a black neighborhood with a clientele of blacks, Filipinos and everybody else who didn't fit in any of the other neighborhoods".[13] Morita would entertain customers with jokes and serve as master of ceremonies for group dinners.[14] After Morita's father was killed in 1956 in a hit-and-run while walking home from an all-night movie, Morita and his mother kept the restaurant going for another three or four years. Needing a regular job to support his wife and a newly born child, Morita became a data processor in the early 1960s with the Department of Motor Vehicles and other state agencies, graduating to a graveyard shift job at Aerojet General. In due time, he was a department head at another aerospace firm, Lockheed, handling the liaison between the engineers and the programmers who were mapping out lunar eclipses for Polaris and Titan missile projects.[13]

However, Morita suffered from occupational burnout and decided to quit his job and try show business.[13] He began working as a stand-up comedian at small clubs in Sacramento and San Francisco, and took the stage name "Pat Morita", in part due to the presence of comedians including Pat Henry and Pat Cooper, and in part due to memories of the priest he had befriended as a boy.[9] Morita struggled for many years in comedy, until fellow performer—ventriloquist Hank Garcia—told him to try his luck in Los Angeles.[13] Sally Marr, Lenny Bruce's mother, acted as his agent and manager after he moved to Los Angeles, and booked him in the San Fernando Valley and at the Horn nightclub in Santa Monica. Morita sometimes worked as the opening act for singers Vic Damone and Connie Stevens and for his mentor,[15] the comedian Redd Foxx. Morita used the nickname "The Hip Nip".[16]

Morita died of kidney failure, following a urinary tract and gallbladder infection, on November 24, 2005, at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the age of 73. Throughout his life, Morita had battled alcoholism.[25][17][26] He was cremated at Palm Green Valley Mortuary and Cemetery in Las Vegas, Nevada.[27]

Roles created prior to his passing were included in a few posthumous works. He voiced Master Udon in the 2006 SpongeBob SquarePants Season 4 episode "Karate Island" (the episode was dedicated to his memory). He had a role in the independent feature film Only the Brave (2006), about the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, where he plays the father of lead actor (and director) Lane Nishikawa (the film included two other Karate Kid stars, Yuji Okumoto and Tamlyn Tomita).[28] He also had roles in Act Your Age (2011), Royal Kill (2009), and Remove All Obstacles (2010).[29]

The fifth episode of the 2018–present series Cobra Kai (a web-streaming follow up to the original Karate Kid films) was dedicated to his memory.[30] Mr. Miyagi is frequently referenced via archival footage from the original films during Cobra Kai, having died on November 15, 2011 (6 years after Morita's death).

Morita's contributions to cinema and his legacy have been the subject of two documentaries including Pat Morita: Long Story Short and More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story in which he appeared in archival footage.[31][32]

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pat Morita.

• Pat Morita at IMDb
• Pat Morita at The Interviews: An Oral History of Television
• George Takei and Pat Morita’s Harrowing Childhood Experiences in Japanese American Internment Camps - Biography Channel, May 4, 2021.
• Ralph Macchio on His Friend and 'Karate Kid' Costar Pat Morita: His Legacy 'Shines Brighter Than Ever' - People, November 6, 2022