Chad McQueen Dies: ‘Karate Kid’ Bad Guy & Son Of Screen Legend Was 63

Erik Pedersen
·4-min read
Chad McQueen Dies: ‘Karate Kid’ Bad Guy & Son Of Screen Legend Was 63

Chad McQueen, who played Dutch in the first two Karate Kid films, appeared in about two dozen other movies and was the son of screen legend Steve McQueen, has died at 63. He died Wednesday morning at his home in Palm Desert, according to his mother Neile Adams McQueen.

“His remarkable journey as a loving father to us, along with his unwavering commitment to our mother, truly exemplified a life filled with love and dedication,” his children Jeanie, Chase and Madison posted on Instagram. “His passion for racing not only highlighted his exceptional talent, but also served as a way to honor his father’s legacy, a testament to the values instilled in him.”

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McQueen was best known for playing Dutch, in The Karate Kid (1984) and The Karate Kid II (1986), part of the original Cobra Kai dojo alongside Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and the sensei John Kreese (Martin Kove). McQueen was the only one of the trio not to appear in the Cobra Kai TV series episode where they reunited.

Hayden Schlossberg, one of the creators and EPs on Netflix’s Cobra Kai, tweeted today that the producers wanted McQueen to reprise his role in the episode. “We tried to get him in Cobra Kai and unfortunately couldn’t make that work but we had fun conversations with him,” he wrote on X. Karate Kid/Cobra Kai fans will always remember his wild character Dutch.”

Born on December 28, 1960, in Los Angeles, McQueen’s other big-screen credits include Fever Pitch (1985), New York Cop (1993), Jimmy Hollywood (1994), Papertrail (1998), Surface to Air (1998) and Fall: The Price of Silence (2001), serving as producer on the last three. He also guested in the 1980s TV series V and Jesse Hawkes and guested occasionally on talk shows.

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McQueen is listed as an executive producer on the treasure-hunt film Yucatan, a longtime passion project of his father’s that is in early development at Netflix from producers Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey under their Team Downey banner. Steve McQueen’s vision involved a story about a renegade salvage expert’s search for Mayan treasure in the Yucatan Peninsula, with him taking the lead role.

The younger McQueen and Warner Bros exec Lance Sloan, a family friend, began development on the project two decades ago. Warners had tried for several years to find a movie in the nearly 1,700 pages of notes and storyboards compiled by Steve McQueen and discovered in a trunk long after his death in 1980.

Chad McQueen’s credits also include executive producing and appearing in two 2010s documentaries about his father: I Am Steve McQueen and Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans. The elder McQueen’s long list of big-screen star turns includes Bullitt, The Magnificant Seven, The Great Escape, Le Mans, The Thomas Crown Affair, The getaway, The Sand Pebbles, The Towering Inferno, Papillon and The Blob.

Partly raised in Malibu, McQueen developed an affinity for racing from an early age while growing up on the set of his father’s films, and riding dirt bikes with his father near their home in Palm Springs.

Already riding dirt bikes, he began auto racing at the age of 10 and practiced on a kids-only track created on the set of his father’s 1971 film, Le Mans. By age 12, the younger McQueen won his class in the World Mini Grand Prix.

His racing career was cut short when McQueen sustained life-threatening injuries in a warm-up session for the Daytona International Speedway’s Rolex 24 event. He esuffered a broken lower leg and multiple vertebrae and rib fractures, surviving but unable to ever race again.

Most recently, he appeared in the 2020 documentary A Life of Endless Summers: The Bruce Brown Story. The elder McQueen helped finance Brown’s Oscar-nominated 1972 motorcycle documentary, On Any Sunday. That film also featured the Great Escape star.

RELATED: Bruce Brown Dies: Surf Movie Pioneer Who Sought The Perfect Wave For ‘Endless Summer’ Was 80

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Patrick Hipes contributed to this report.

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