He began his career as a stand-up comedian, before becoming known to television audiences for his recurring role as diner owner Matsuo "Arnold" Takahashi on the sitcom series Happy Days (1975-83).

He was subsequently nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of martial arts mentor Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid (1984),[2] which would be the first of a media franchise in which Morita was the central player.

Morita was the series lead actor in the television program Mr. T and Tina and in Ohara, a police-themed drama.

Aside from his 1985 Oscar nod, Pat Morita was twice nominated for Golden Globe Awards (Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for The Karate Kid and Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film for the made-for-television film Amos), and an Emmy Award.

[5] Morita's father, Tamaru, born in 1897, immigrated to California from Kumamoto Prefecture on the Japanese island of Kyushu in 1915.

[13] 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,[14] 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".

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.

[15] 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, the comedian Redd Foxx.

The original preferred choice was Toshiro Mifune, who had appeared in the Akira Kurosawa films Rashomon (1950), Seven Samurai (1954), and The Hidden Fortress (1958), but the actor did not speak English.

[21] Morita later auditioned for the role, but was initially rejected for the part due to his close association with stand-up comedy, and with the character Arnold from Happy Days.

[22] Morita eventually tested five times before Weintraub himself offered him the role,[22] ultimately winning it because he grew a beard and patterned his accent after his uncle.

Later in his career he starred on the Nickelodeon television series The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo (1996–1998), and had a recurring role on the sitcom The Hughleys (2000).

Pat Morita died of kidney failure, following a urinary tract and gallbladder bacterial infection, on November 24, 2005, at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, at the age of 73.

[34] In-universe, Mr. Miyagi died on November 15, 2011, but is frequently referenced via archive footage from the original films.