Against All Odds: My Story (26 page)

O
ne morning as I was opening my mail, I came across a letter from a Dianna DeCioli. I opened the letter and started reading, wondering who this person was. I soon found out.

“I am your daughter,” the letter said.

The words nearly floored me.

“My mother is Johanna,” the writer stated, a woman that I had known many years ago. Dianna went on to say that she was an adult now, married, and had a young daughter of her own. She expressed a desire to meet me to obtain a more accurate medical history. She closed the letter by saying that if I didn't contact her, she would never bother me again.

My thoughts flashed back to August 1962, a week before I was to be discharged from the US Air Force. I was stationed at March Air Force base in Riverside, California. My brother, Wieland, had come to Riverside to keep me company until I was discharged. My wife, Dianne, was in Los Angeles getting our apartment ready for us to move into when I came home from the service.

One night Wieland and I decided to go out and have some fun. We went to a nightclub where a band was playing and lots of people were dancing. We sat down at a table and ordered a drink, just as a dance contest was announced.

Wieland, who was an incredible dancer, asked an attractive girl at a nearby table to dance with him. They danced up a storm and won the contest! Their prize for winning the contest was free beer for the night.

Wieland brought his dance partner and another girl over to our table and introduced them to me. His dance partner was Joyce, and the other young woman with long auburn hair was her older sister, Johanna. The four of us danced the night away.

Wieland and I took the sisters out a couple times that week and dated them several more times over the next few months. To my shame I never told Johanna that I was married. One night Johanna and I went to a drive-in movie alone, and we engaged in sexual intercourse, right there in the car. It was the first and only time we were sexually intimate.

Although Johanna and Joyce were great girls and fun to be with, I knew that from an ethical, Christian perspective, what I was doing was wrong. It would be an understatement to admit that I felt guilty about being unfaithful to my wife and not being honest with Johanna. It was a situation that I knew must end, so I stopped seeing Johanna.

That had been many years ago. Now suddenly it seemed as though it were yesterday, as I stood reading a letter from a woman claiming to be Johanna's daughter. When I snapped out of my trance, I stared at the letter for a long time, wondering what course of action I should take. The return address on the letter was a town located near my mother's home, about seventy miles away from mine. I called Mom and read the letter to her.

“What do you want to do, Son?”

“Would you call Dianna and talk with her, and let me know what you think?” Mom did better than that. She agreed to a face-to-face encounter with the young woman claiming to be my daughter.

Mom invited Dianna to her home so they could meet. That afternoon I sat by the phone anxiously waiting for Mom's report. When the call finally came, Mom was brief and to the point. “I want you to come over to my house right now. Dianna is here.” She and Dianna were waiting for me.

I had no idea what to expect, so I asked my brother Aaron to go with me. As we were driving to Mom's house, I asked myself,
How will I know if she really is my daughter?

When we arrived at Mom's house, I was nervous, anxious, and scared. I walked into the living room and nearly had my breath knocked out of me. There, standing before me, was a beautiful young lady. I was stunned, but the moment I saw her, I knew. I didn't need DNA or blood tests; there was no doubt in my mind that she was my daughter. I went to her, wrapped my arms around her, and we both started crying. At that moment it was as if I had known her all of her life.

Later Dianna told me how her mother had gotten pregnant from that one and only encounter, and when she was born, her mother named her Dianna but called her Dina (pronounced “Deena”). Johanna got married soon after Dina was born, so Dina always believed that the man her mother married was her father. Johanna never mentioned a word otherwise and probably wouldn't have disclosed the fact that I was her biological father had it not been for an idle conversation when Dina was sixteen.

Dina came home from school one day and overheard her mother talking about me with a friend. “Chuck Norris? What does he have to do with us?” Dina wanted to know. Johanna later confirmed to Dina that I was her biological father but that I was married and had children, and she shouldn't disrupt my life.

Ten years later Dina read in the newspapers that I was divorced. It was then that she decided to write to me with the approval of her husband, Damien.

Dina and I had to cut our visit short because I was scheduled to leave for Israel to begin work on a new film. We assured each other that we would catch up when I returned. While I was in Israel, however, Damien's company transferred him to Dallas. Dina later told me that she was most upset about the move because she felt that after finally finding her real father, she would rarely get a chance to see me, if at all.

As is often said, “God works in mysterious ways.” While I was in Israel, I accepted the offer to film the TV series
Walker, Texas Ranger
… in Dallas. When I learned that Dina and her family were also in Dallas, I was convinced that this was God's plan for bringing us together.

Since that day in Mom's living room in 1991, Dina, Damien, and their three children, Gabrielle, Dante, and Elijah, have become a blessed part of my life. I have also spoken with Johanna several times, and have apologized for my deceit.

“A lot of time has gone by, Johanna, and I can never bring back the years,” I acknowledged. “I wish I could have helped you more at the time of Dina's birth. We were so young, and I had nothing to offer you. But I can help you now, and if you will allow me, I'd like to make restitution and try to make it up to you and Dina. I know I made a lot of mistakes in the past. I'm truly sorry. Would you please forgive me?”

“Yes, of course, I forgive you,” Johanna said. “And I know that God has forgiven us. But if it had not been for that night, Dina would not be here, and I can't imagine my life without her.”

Certainly, I know now that God does not condone premarital or extramarital sexual relationships. But I've also discovered that there is no such thing as an “illegitimate child.” Every baby is “legitimate” in God's eyes; every child is precious in his sight. Our actions that brought about that baby were wrong. But Johanna was right. Dina is an incredible person, and I am blessed to have her as my daughter, and Damien, her wonderful husband, as my son-in-law. Gabrielle (Gabi) is an angel. Dante is all boy, and Elijah (Eli) calls me “Paka.” As a baby, Gabi had mispronounced “Papa,” and the name stuck. To this day my grandchildren on Dina's side of the family still call me Paka.

Most heartwarming to me, from the first time we met, Dina called me Dad. My sons, Mike and Eric, have accepted Dina as a sister, just as she has accepted them as her brothers. Today we are one big, happy family. My sin was horrible, but God took what Satan intended for evil and used it for good. As Johanna said, “It was a sin that became a blessing.”

CHAPTER 22

WALKER, TEXAS RANGER

W
hile I was in Israel filming the movie
Hellbound
, in 1992, my manager, Mike Emery, called and asked if I would be interested in doing a weekly TV series with CBS called
Walker, Texas Ranger
, a modern-day story of a Texas Ranger with old-fashioned values who champions right over wrong. At first, I was reluctant, but Mike piqued my interest when he told me that the series would be about a cowboy-type law officer fighting crime in a modern Texas city.

“Let me think about it, Mike. I'm not really sure I want to do television,” I said. “After all, it would be a big gamble, and if the series isn't successful, it could adversely affect my film career.”

But the thought of playing a Texas Ranger intrigued me. When I was growing up, my favorite movies were Westerns. Their overriding message was the Code of the West—friendship, loyalty, and integrity—values I felt ought to be reflected in a television series. I decided to take the risk of jumping from a movie career to television.

I believe that the public wants and needs heroes, a John Wayne-type, American hero. Many people, especially youngsters, want someone with whom they can identify, a man or woman who is self-reliant, stands on his or her own two feet, and is not afraid to face adversity. I decided that if I was going to do a series, this should be the one. My personal beliefs became the core traits of the lead character in the television series, Cordell Walker.

I began filming the
Walker
series in January 1993 and had completed only four episodes when Cannon Films, the company paying the lion's share of the production costs for the series, went bankrupt, and the series was shelved. It was a sad time for me because I really enjoyed doing the show.

Fortunately, about four months later CBS decided to cover the full cost of producing the series, something that is rarely done nowadays. Most television shows are financed by outside groups and sold to the networks for airing, but CBS was so convinced that
Walker
had potential, they were willing to take the risk.

Before long I resumed filming and took on the role of executive producer as well. I brought my brother Aaron on as my coexecutive producer. Aaron had become an accomplished movie director and producer by this time. More importantly, Aaron and I had the same heart, the same attitude. He understood what I wanted to do. My son, Eric, was the stunt coordinator and later became one of my best directors.

I never worked harder in my life than I did those first few years of
Walker
, putting in sixteen-hour days, at least six days a week, and often seven. Each week Aaron and I worked right up until the moment we had to deliver the program to CBS, still fine-tuning and editing. We took a short break around Christmastime, and then we were right back on location in Dallas, filming in the cold weather as well as the searing hot summers. We were writing the scripts and producing what we felt was a mini-movie every week on the
Walker
set. It was a wonderfully creative but exhausting time in my life, but the fans of the program loved
Walker, Texas Ranger
, and that kept me going.
Walker
became the most successful Saturday night series on television since the legendary Western,
Gunsmoke.

Not surprisingly, many television critics skewered
Walker
as being too violent. I was disappointed but not upset. We had an old-time cowboy feel to our show, and our characters frequently got in fights and fired guns. And of course,
Walker
won a lot of altercations by incorporating his knowledge of the martial arts. That made us a violent show to some people. What the critics chose to ignore, of course, was the fact that the good guys on
Walker
never used violence if there were any other means of apprehending the criminals, and even then we always showed the violence being used as a last resort and as a means of good conquering evil.

Despite being panned by the critics, the public embraced
Walker, Texas Ranger
, and soon
Walker
was not only a well-established program on CBS; it became one of the top-rated shows on television. Maybe that's the reason Peter Jennings, star of the ABC television network news programs, asked me to take part in a special program highlighting the problems in our schools. When Peter invited me to come to Washington, D.C., he said, “We know that you have a foundation that works with at-risk children. We're going to have children from various schools across America in the audience, and we're going to talk about what's going on in the schools. We're going to have several celebrity guests, including Janet Reno, a female rap singer, and a psychologist. We'd like you to come and talk about the problems in schools but also to talk about how your foundation is helping to solve some of those concerns.”