Chad McQueen was the only son of the late actor Steve McQueen, and he inherited a lifelong passion for racing from his father.Credit...Jean Francois Monier/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Mr. McQueen, the son of Steve McQueen, is most widely recognized for his recurring role as Dutch in the 1980s cult classic franchise “The Karate Kid.”
Chad McQueen, the actor best known for the role of “Dutch” in the “Karate Kid” movie franchise and son of the actor Steve McQueen, died on Wednesday at his home in Palm Desert, Calif. He was 63.
His family announced his death in a post on social media, paired with a photo of him as a boy with his famous father. The cause was organ failure, his longtime attorney and friend, Arthur Barens, said.
Chad McQueen was involved in more than 25 movies and television shows, as an actor, producer and other roles, but he is most widely recognized for his role as Dutch in the 1984 teen classic “The Karate Kid.”
As Dutch, Mr. McQueen played a mean, troublemaking bully of the Cobra Kai dojo who ran with Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and his gang, showing no mercy and jumping up and down in excitement as they delivered a brutal beating to Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) on Halloween night.
He reprised the role of Dutch in the sequel, “The Karate Kid Part II,” released in 1986.
Mr. McQueen went on to appear in other films including “New York Cop,” a 1993 action film about a Japanese detective living illegally in the United States; and “Red Line,” a 1995 thriller about a car thief who is blackmailed.
But Mr. McQueen did not stay in Hollywood for long after that, and he again followed in his father’s footsteps by switching to auto racing.
“I was surrounded by the two things: film and motorsports, and motorsports always seemed to attract me more,” Mr. McQueen said in a June 2017 interview with FlickFeast, a website about films. He described his father’s love of cars as so infectious “it screwed me up for life.”
Mr. McQueen competed in events including the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 12 Hours of Sebring. In 2010, he founded McQueen Racing, a company that develops high-performance cars and motorcycles.
Mr. McQueen was seriously injured in February 2006 while practicing for the Daytona International Speedway’s Rolex 24 event. He was in a coma for nearly a month, and broke his neck, leg, arm, ribs and suffered a collapsed lung, he told The Sunday Times in a June 2017 interview.
“Would I change anything? No, I wouldn’t. Motor sport is the strongest drug in the world,” Mr. McQueen said in the 2017 interview.
Chadwick Steven McQueen was born on Dec. 28, 1960, in Los Angeles. His father, Steve McQueen, was the highest-paid film star of the 1960s and 1970s, and his mother, Neile Adams, was a Filipino American actress, singer, and dancer. He grew up in Southern California.
Chad McQueen’s first film credit was as a skateboarder in the 1978 film “Skateboard,” considered the first feature film about the 1970s skateboarding craze. His other film credits include “Hadley’s Rebellion,” a 1983 drama about a small town boy’s passion for wrestling; “Fever Pitch,” a 1985 drama about a famous sportswriter who becomes a compulsive gambler while doing an investigation on the subject; and “Surface to Air,” a 1998 action film about two brothers, one in the Navy and the other a Marine, who travel to the Persian Gulf to stop a coup.
He also appeared on television, including in “V” (1984); “Jesse Hawkes” (1989); “Search and Rescue” (1994); and “Steve McQueen: The Essence of Cool” (2005).
He is survived by his first wife, actress Stacey Toten, with whom he had one child, Steven McQueen, an actor known for his roles in television series including “The Vampire Diaries” and “Chicago Fire”; and his second wife, Jeanie; with whom he had a son, Chase, and a daughter, Madison.
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