Westerns - Asian, Hawaiian & International contributions
born 1863 - 1950s.
From USA, China, Japan, Hawaii, Hong Kong, France, Taiwan, Canada, Trinidad Tobago, South Korea.
From USA, China, Japan, Hawaii, Hong Kong, France, Taiwan, Canada, Trinidad Tobago, South Korea.
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- Korean-American character actor Philip Ahn played hundreds of Chinese and Japanese characters during a long career. He was born in Los Angeles in 1905 (though 1911 is the year usually given, U.S. government records confirm that Ahn was born in 1905), the son of a Korean diplomat. He attended the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. Ahn got his first film acting job in 1935 and quickly made a place for himself playing Asians of many ethnicities. Although his kindly demeanor made him perfect for sympathetic roles, he could excel in the occasional villainous "Yellow Peril"-type role. Condemned, like most Asian actors of the period, to stereotypical roles, Ahn nevertheless brought a dignity to even the most subservient of characters. In his later years he achieved his greatest fame as the wise Master Kan on the television series Kung Fu (1972). Ahn was also a successful Los Angeles restaurateur. He died in 1978. Not to be confused with his brother, actor Philson Ahn.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Miiko Taka came into the world as Betty Miiko Shikata in Seattle, Washington, a Nisei born of Japanese immigrant parentage. She spent much of her upbringing in Los Angeles. In 1942, Betty and her family were removed from their homes and interned in the Gila River War Relocation Centre in Arizona, a concentration camp which had been set up following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour. One of her fellow detainees was the actor Pat Morita. Betty's internee file described her as a semi-skilled dressmaker and seamstress and suggested stenographer or typist as 'potential occupations'. Little is known of Betty's life prior to her debut in Joshua Logan's Sayonara (1957) , except that she had no prior acting experience and was employed as a clerk at a travel agency in L.A..
The role of Hana-Ogi, the celebrated Matsubayashi dancer who defies tradition by having a secret affair with an American pilot (Marlon Brando), had originally been earmarked for Audrey Hepburn. When Hepburn turned it down, Logan cast the unknown Miiko Taka in the part. Sayonara ultimately grossed $ 10.5 million and won four Oscars, including one for co-star Miyoshi Umeki as Best Supporting Actress. Miiko's performance was lauded by Variety and by Bosley Crowther of the New York Times who described her as "a flute-like beauty - a really lovely, serene and soothing impulse".
In the wake of Sayonara, Miiko was cast as a geisha opposite Glenn Ford in Cry for Happy (1961), a predictable comedy about the assorted romantic affairs of four G.I.'s on leave in Japan during the Korean War. She had further high profile roles in Operation Bottleneck (1961) (as a girl guerrilla), A Global Affair (1964) (with Bob Hope), The Art of Love (1965) (with James Garner) and Walk Don't Run (1966) (with Cary Grant in his last film appearance). On television, she was mostly typecast amid exotic backgrounds in such escapist entertainments as Hawaiian Eye (1959), Adventures in Paradise (1959), I Spy (1965) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964). Her penultimate screen appearance was as a Japanese noblewoman in James Clavell's miniseries Shogun (1980).
Miiko Taka was thrice married. Her first husband was the actor Dale Ishimoto with whom she had a son and a daughter.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Benson Fong was born on 10 October 1916 in Sacramento, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), The Shanghai Cobra (1945) and The Scarlet Clue (1945). He was married to Maylia. He died on 1 August 1987 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1916 - 1987, (70). California.
18 westerns, 59-86
#2 credit:. Det. Joe Tsin,
The Hatchet Man (1960). 1960.- Spencer Chan was born on 28 March 1892 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Across the Pacific (1942), The Sea Hound (1947) and Timber Fury (1950). He died on 9 January 1988 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1892 - 1988, (95). Californian.
46 westerns, 46-74.
Chu, Blind Marriage (1960). 1960. Credited.
Soong Li, Chinaman's Chance (1952). 1953. Credited. - Chester Gan was born on 4 July 1908 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Victory (1940), Across the Pacific (1942) and Man Made Monster (1941). He died on 29 June 1959 in San Francisco, California, USA.1908 - 1959, (50). San Francisco.
19 westerns,1934-1942,
Sing Lo, Rawhide Rangers (1941). 1941. Credited.
Chang, The Mighty Treve (1937). 1937. Credited.
Cook, waiter, train passenger, workman, servant. - Actor
- Producer
- Writer
James Hong was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. He studied civil engineering at the University of Minnesota, but at some point along the way became interested in acting. He graduated from the University of Southern California and practiced for 1½ years as a road engineer with the County of Los Angeles. He took sick leaves and vacation time to do films. He finally quit engineering to focus on acting full time.
He is one of the founders of the East-West Players, the oldest Asian American theater in Los Angeles. He served as president and charter member of the Association of Asian Pacific American Artists.
Hong is one of the most prolific and well-recognized Asian-American character actors of movies and television. He currently lives in Los Angeles and is planning to produce and direct his own films.1929 -. Minnesota, USA.
51 westerns, 58-03.
Ching Sun,
To the Manner Born (1959). 1959. Credited.
China Joe,
Lady of the Press (1959). 1959. Credited.
88 in 2017, with over 400 IMDb credits.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Achieving both film and TV notice during his lengthy career, this diminutive Asian-American character was born Victor Cheung Young on October 18, 1915 in San Francisco to Chinese emigrants. When his mother died during the influenza epidemic of 1918-19, his father placed Victor and his sister in a children's shelter and returned to China, returning to the USA in the mid-1920s, having remarried. The two children were released back to his guardianship, and began learning Chinese. To contribute to the family income, young Sen Yew was employed as a houseboy at age 11 and managed to earn his way through college at the University of California at Berkeley with an interest in animal husbandry and receiving a degree in economics.
Following a move to Hollywood for some post graduate work at UCLA and USC, Victor gained an entrance into films via extra work, where he was in such roles as a peasant boy in The Good Earth (1937), and a soldier in Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938), among others. During this early period he also worked as a salesman for a chemical firm. In one of Hollywood's more interesting tales of being "discovered", the story goes that Victor (as he would become known) was on the 20th Century-Fox studio lot at the time trying to pitch one of his company's flame retardant compounds to industry techies when one of them suggested he check out casting. The original actor who had played Charlie Chan, Warner Oland, died and the series was undergoing a major casting overhaul. In the end, Sidney Toler, received cast approval, chose the fledgling actor following a screen test to play his #2 son, Jimmy Chan, for the film Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938). Victor went on to play the role for seventeen other "Charlie Chan" features. Needless, to say he quit the sales business for good.
Victor enjoyed playing Jimmy, the earnest rookie detective who, to his chagrin, was always under the watchful eye of his famous father while trying to help solve murder cases. Outside the role, however, Victor (billed variously as Sen Yung, Victor Yung, and Victor Sen Yung at different times) found the atmosphere oppressive. Usually cast in nothing-special Asian stereotypes, sometimes villainous, in war-era films, parts in such movies as The Letter (1940) starring Bette Davis, Secret Agent of Japan (1942), Little Tokyo, U.S.A. (1942), Moontide (1942), Across the Pacific (1942), Manila Calling (1942), China (1943) and Night Plane from Chungking (1943), did little to advance his stature in Hollywood. His career was interrupted for U.S. Air Force duty as a Captain of Intelligence during WWII. His part in the Chan pictures was taken over by actor Benson Fong.
Victor was able to pick up where he left off in Hollywood following the war and returned to his famous role as #2 son. The character's name, however, was eventually changed from "Jimmy" to "Tommy" after a third installment of Charlie Chan pictures were filmed with Roland Winters now the title sleuth after the death of Toler in 1947. While Victor's workload was fairly steady, again the roles themselves were meager and hardly inspiring. Most were in "B" level crime mysteries and war pictures and many were uncredited roles. Reduced often to playing middle-age servile roles (houseboys, laundrymen, valets, clerks, dock workers and waiters), some of his slightly more prominent roles include those in Woman on the Run (1950), Forbidden (1953), Target Hong Kong (1953), and Trader Tom of the China Seas (1954). His last film appearance was in The Man with Bogart's Face (1980).
On TV, he appeared in two familiar recurring roles. On the John Forsythe series, Bachelor Father (1957), he showed up as "Peter Fong" on the final season of the sitcom. He played the cousin to houseboy Sammee Tong's regular character. Victor is better remembered, however, for the part of Hop Sing, the earnest, volatile cook to the Cartwright clan, provided sporadic comic relief on Bonanza (1959). He also appeared in the TV pilot and in several episodes of Kung Fu (1972), as well as popping up in dramatic episodes of Hawaiian Eye (1959), The F.B.I. (1965). and Hawaii Five-O (1968). Sitcoms gave a hint of his gentle, humorous side in Here's Lucy (1968), Get Smart (1965) and Mister Ed (1961).
Married and divorced with one child, he sought work outside of acting by the mid-1970s. At one point he was giving cooking demonstrations in department stores. An accomplished chef who specialized in Cantonese-style cooking, in 1974, he published the 1974 Great Wok Cookbook and dedicated the book to his father, Sen Gam Yung.
Victor Sen Yung was working on a second cookbook when he was suddenly found dead in November of 1980 under initially "mysterious circumstances" in his modest San Fernando Valley bungalow. Following an investigation it was determined that Victor was accidentally asphyxiated in his sleep after turning on a faulty kitchen stove for heat. He was survived by his son, Brent Kee Young, and two grandchildren.- Lovely, demure actress Nobu McCarthy, born Nobu Atsumi in Ottawa Canada, was raised in Japan and studied ballet. A modeling career eventually led to her winning the "Miss Tokyo" beauty title. She married a US serviceman and returned to the States in 1955. Discovered by a talent agent, she made a gentle, touching impression in such films as The Geisha Boy (1958) alongside a slapstick Jerry Lewis, the comedy Wake Me When It's Over (1960) with Dick Shawn and Ernie Kovacs, and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) starring Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood. She also graced episodic TV with a number of guest spots. Most appreciated as an unassuming girl-next-door type, she more or less shied away from her career following a painful divorce, but returned to acting in 1971 as a member of the East West Players, a small L.A.-based theater group. She eventually became their artistic director from 1989 to 1993. She died at age 67 in 2002 of an aneurysm while on film location in Brazil for the movie Gaijin - Ama-me Como Sou (2005).
- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Sessue Hayakawa was born in Chiba, Japan. His father was the provincial governor and his mother a member of an aristocratic family of the "samurai" class. The young Hayakawa wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and become a career officer in the Japanese navy, but he was turned down due to problems with his hearing. The disappointed Hayakawa decided to make his career on the stage. He joined a Japanese theatrical company that eventually toured the United States in 1913. Pioneering film producer Thomas H. Ince spotted him and offered him a movie contract. Roles in The Wrath of the Gods (1914) and The Typhoon (1914) turned Hayakawa into an overnight success. The first Asian-American star of the American screen was born.
He married actress Tsuru Aoki on May 1, 1914. The next year his appearance in Cecil B. DeMille's sexploitation picture The Cheat (1915) made Hayakawa a silent-screen superstar. He played an ivory merchant who has an affair with the Caucasian Fannie Ward, and audiences were "scandalized" when he branded her as a symbol of her submission to their passion. The movie was a blockbuster for Famous Players-Lasky (later Paramount), turning Hayakawa into a romantic idol for millions of American women, regardless of their race. However, there were objections and outrage from racists of all stripes, especially those who were opposed to miscegenation (sexual contact between those of different races). Also outraged was the Japanese-American community, which was dismayed by DeMille's unsympathetic portrayal of a member of their race. The Japanese-American community protested the film and attempted to have it banned when it was re-released in 1918.
The popularity of Hayakawa rivaled that of Caucasian male movie stars in the decade of the 1910s, and he became one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood. He made his career in melodramas, playing romantic heroes and charismatic heavies. He co-starred with the biggest female stars in Hollywood, all of whom were, of course, Caucasian. His pictures often co-starred Jack Holt as his Caucasian rival for the love of the white heroine (Holt would later become a top action star in the 1920s),
Hayakawa left Famous Players-Lasky to go independent, setting up his own production company, Haworth Pictures Corp. Through the end of the decade Haworth produced Asian-themed films starring Hayakawa and wife Tsuru Aoki that proved very popular. These movies elucidated the immigrant's desire to "cross over" or assimilate into society at large and pursue the "American Dream" in a society free of racial intolerance. Sadly, most of these films are now lost.
With the dawn of a new decade came a rise in anti-Asian sentiment, particularly over the issue of immigration due to the post-World War I economic slump. Hayakawa's films began to perform poorly at the box office, bringing his first American movie career to an end in 1922. He moved to Japan but was unable to get a career going. Relocating to France, he starred in La bataille (1923), a popular melodrama spiced with martial arts. He made Sen Yan's Devotion (1924) and The Great Prince Shan (1924) in the UK.
In 1931 Hayakawa returned to Hollywood to make his talking-picture debut in support of Anna May Wong in Daughter of the Dragon (1931). Sound revealed that he had a heavy accent, and his acting got poor reviews. He returned to Japan before once again going to France, where he made the geisha melodrama Yoshiwara (1937) for director Max Ophüls. He also appeared in a remake of "The Cheat" called Forfaiture (1937), playing the same role that over 20 year earlier had made him one of the biggest stars in the world.
After the Second World War he took a third stab at Hollywood. In 1949 he relaunched g himself as a character actor with Tokyo Joe (1949) in support of Humphrey Bogart, and Three Came Home (1950) with Claudette Colbert. Hayakawa reached the apex of this, his third career, with his role as the martinet POW camp commandant in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), which brought him an Academy Award nomination for Best Suporting Actor. His performance as Col. Saito was essential to the success of David Lean's film, built as it was around the battle of wills between Hayakawa's commandant and Alec Guinness' Col. Nicholson, head of the Allied POWs. The film won the Best Picture Academy Award, while Lean and Guiness also were rewarded with Oscars.
Hayakawa continued to act in movies regularly until his retirement in 1966. He returned to Japan, becoming a Zen Buddhist priest while remaining involved in his craft by giving private acting lessons.
Ninety years after achieving stardom, he remains one of the few Asians to assume superstar status in American motion pictures.1889 - 1973, (84). Japan.
4 westerns, 14-58.
#1 credit, El Jaguar, The Jaguar's Claws (1917). 1917.
2. Tiah, The Last of the Line (1914). 1914.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Sab Shimono was born on 31 July 1937 in Sacramento, California, USA. He is an actor, known for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993), Southland Tales (2006) and The Shadow (1994). He has been married to Steve Alden Nelson since 23 June 2008.- Ah Wing was born on 12 July 1851 in China. He was an actor, known for The Grub Stake (1923), The She Wolf (1919) and The Girl from Beyond (1918). He died on 27 February 1941 in Weimar, California, USA.
- James Wang was born in 1863 in Canton, China. He was an actor, known for The Secrets of Wu Sin (1932), The Fighting American (1924) and Perils of Pauline (1933). He died on 20 April 1935 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1863 - 1935, (72). China. USA.
Desert Driven (1923). 1923.
Wing Ling, The Eagle's Feather (1923). 1923 - Lee Tong Foo was born on 23 April 1875 in Alameda, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Across the Pacific (1942), There's a Girl in My Heart (1949) and Mr. Wong, Detective (1938). He died on 1 May 1966 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Wong Chung was born on 17 July 1880 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for King of Chinatown (1939). He died on 25 July 1963 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Kisaburô Kurihara was born on 24 January 1885 in Kanagawa, Japan. He was an actor and director, known for Haru wa kaeru (1924), Yume no tabiji (1921) and Amachua kurabu (1920). He died on 8 September 1926 in Tokyo, Japan.- George Kuwa was born on 7 April 1885 in Japan. He was an actor, known for The House Without a Key (1926), Moran of the Lady Letty (1922) and The Bottle Imp (1917). He died on 13 October 1931 in Japan.
- W.T. Chang was born on 9 April 1886 in Suzhou, China. He was an actor, known for TV Reader's Digest (1955), The Man Called X (1956) and The Alaskans (1959). He died on 27 June 1961 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
James B. Leong was born on 2 November 1889 in Shanghai, China. He was an actor and director, known for Lotus Blossom (1921), Shadow of Chinatown (1936) and Ransom (1928). He died on 16 December 1967 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1889 - 1967, (78). China. USA.
3 westerns, 58-60.
Gomez's friend,. Buchanan Rides Alone (1958). 1958.- Mrs. Wong Wing was born on 10 January 1875 in San Francisco, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Dangerous Paradise (1930), Where East Is East (1929) and Mr. Wu (1927). She died on 12 March 1942 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Daisy Lee was born on 27 July 1893 in Portland, Oregon, USA. She was an actress, known for Little Tokyo, U.S.A. (1942). She died on 12 April 1956 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Miyoshi Jingu was born on 1 July 1893 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. She was an actress, known for Dreams of Glass (1970), Schlitz Playhouse (1951) and My Three Sons (1960). She died on 19 January 1969 in Los Angeles, California, USA(undisclosed).
- Tetsu Komai was born on 23 April 1894 in Kumamoto, Japan. He was an actor, known for Island of Lost Souls (1932), The Secrets of Wu Sin (1932) and Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941). He died on 10 August 1970 in Gardena, California, USA.
- Al Kikume was born on 9 October 1894 in Kaimuki District, Honolulu, Hawaii [now Hawaii, USA]. He was an actor, known for The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1942), Mandrake, the Magician (1939) and The Hurricane (1937). He was married to Virgil Smith. He died on 27 March 1972 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1894 - 1972, (77). Hawaii. California.
4 westerns, 36-58.
Chief White Cloud,
Indian Agent (1958). 1958. - One of the most familiar Asian character actors in American films of the 1930s and 1940s, Richard Loo was most often stereotyped as the Japanese enemy flier, spy or interrogator during the Second World War. Chinese by ancestry and Hawaiian by birth, Loo spent his youth in Hawaii, then moved to California as a teenager. He attended the University of California and attempted a career in business. However, the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent economic depression forced him to start over. He became involved with amateur, then professional, theater companies and in 1931 made his first film. Like most Asian actors in non-Asian countries, he played primarily small, stereotypical roles, though he rose quickly to familiarity, if not fame, in a number of fine films. His features led him to be a favorite movie villain, and the coming of World War II gave him greater prominence in roles as vicious Japanese soldiers in successful pictures such as The Purple Heart (1944) and God Is My Co-Pilot (1945). He had a rare heroic role as a weary Japanese-American soldier in the Korean War drama The Steel Helmet (1951), but spent far too much of his career in later years performing stock roles. His wife, Bessie Loo, was a well-known Hollywood agent.
- Soo Yong was born on 31 October 1903 in Wailuku, Maui, Hawaii, USA. She was an actress, known for The Good Earth (1937), Sayonara (1957) and China Seas (1935). She was married to C.K. Huang. She died on 29 October 1984 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
- Actor
Owen Song was born on 19 October 1907 in Hawaii, USA. He was an actor. He died on 10 January 1999 in Anaheim, California, USA.1907 - 1999,91. Hawaii. California.
19 westerns, 58-71.
Railroad worker,
Hey Boy's Revenge (1958). 1958.- John Fujioka was born on 29 June 1925 in Olaa, Hawaii, USA. He was an actor, known for Mortal Kombat (1995), American Ninja (1985) and Pearl Harbor (2001). He died on 13 December 2018 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Frances Fong was born on 22 September 1927 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. She was an actress, known for Rush Hour (1998), Kung Fu (1972) and Hellfighters (1968). She died on 24 October 2012 in the USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Hawaiian-born James Shigeta was, for a time, the biggest East Asian U.S. star the country had known for decades. His up-and-down career reflected the country's changing interest in films with East Asian themes, but, when called upon, he filled both A-movie starring roles and minor T.V. guest appearances with the same cool and classy style. An aspiring song-and-dance man early in his career, he had a series of romantic leading roles in the late fifties, culminating in his most important one, the lead in Ross Hunter's glitzy production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical, Flower Drum Song (1961). Supporting parts followed, his last showy turn coming again from Ross Hunter, with star billing and his own production number in the ill-fated musical remake of Lost Horizon (1973). Along the way, there have been many notable T.V. guest appearances showcasing Shigeta's facility with both sympathetic and villainous roles. His status as the foremost East Asian leading man of twentieth century U.S. film will endure undiminished by an erratic career.1929 - 2014, (85). Hawaii. California
7 westerns, 60-77.
Lester Kato, Death Walks in Laredo (1967). 1967. Death Walks in Laredo.- Actor
- Producer
- Executive
Clyde Kusatsu was born on 13 September 1948 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Paradise Road (1997), The Interpreter (2005) and Midway (1976). He has been married to Gayle Shuffler since 29 August 1976. They have two children.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Aki Aleong was born in Trinidad and Tobago. His distinguished career has spanned more than 60 years as an actor, singer, writer, producer, activist and martial arts and action film star.
Aki currently stars as Dr. Yuki Tano in Nico Santucci's feature film "Sarogeto" - a story revealing the complicated and emotional struggle that Japanese American Grace / Minami Stanton faces and the controversial decision she makes on this unorthodox journey of a woman's search to find peace for her family and spiritual enlightenment. It's a film filled with relevant and thought provoking subjects including depression, anxiety and suicide (accepted in Japanese culture versus Western). Sarogeto stars Ikumi Yoshimatsu, Eric Roberts, Winsor Harmon, Ruby Park, Koji Niiya, Aki Aleong, Angelica Bridges and Nikki Nikita. Much of this movie was shot in the Aokigahara Forest (Suicide Forest) in Japan and is partially subtitled in Japanese, with the majority in English. Additional locations include Tokyo, Laguna Beach, Marina del Rey and Newport Beach and the film is set for release in 2021.
Aki's career started on Broadway in "Teahouse of the August Moon" and "The Interview." He went on to star in more than 50 movies and 150 television shows and worked with such Academy Award-winners as Frank Sinatra Jr., Marlon Brando, Faye Dunaway, Joanne Woodward, Steve McQueen, Ben Kingsley, John Mills, Ernest Borgnine, Jennifer Connelly and Martin Landau. His career included working with such prominent writers and directors as William Wyler (3 time Oscar winner), John Sturges, Martin Ritt, John Milius, Lionel Chetwynd, Philip Yordan, Mark Rydell, and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Pearl S. Buck.
Aki has starred in features with the best martial artists in the world, including Cung Le in "Blizniy Boy: The Ultimate Fighter" (2007) and "Savage Dog" (2017); Bolo Yeoung in Blizniy Boy: The Ultimate Fighter"; and with Sammo Hung in "Martial Law" (1998). He worked with world-class female martial artists Cynthia Rothrock, in "Sci-Fighter" (2004). and Juju Chan, in "Savage Dog" (2017) and "Road to Hell" (2017). He worked with Scott Adkins in "Savage Dog" (2017); Darren Shahlavi in "Pound of Flesh" (2015); Gary Daniels, Al Leong and Ron Yuan in "Deadly Target" (1994); and with Gary Hudson, Jason Gedrick and Kim Delaney in "The Force" (1994).
Although he is a heroic rights activist in real life, Aki has often played villains in martial arts and action films. In "Braddock: Missing in Action III" (1988), Chuck Norris' character of Braddock, his wife and son are captured by soldiers of the sadistic Vietnamese General Quoc, played by Aki. Quoc kills Braddock's wife on the spot, and tortures Braddock and his son until he meets his death at the end of the film. Aki's numerous memorable roles include Senator Hidoshi during the first season of "Babylon 5"; Mr. Chiang in the weekly series of "V: The Series"; the Dalai Lama in "Superhero Movie" (2008); and the character of Colonel Mitamura in "Farewell to the King" with Nick Nolte.
Aki's musical talent was discovered by Frank Sinatra when they were filming together on the film "Lover's So Few". Sinatra signed Aki to his Reprise Records Label. Aki is the first Asian American to have a Top 100 record "Trade Winds", which he wrote and co-produced, on the National Charts in the US. Aki has served as a record executive and chaired the Fraternity of Recording Executives and was President of the Pan World Records and Golden Dragon publishing companies. He was the National Director of Black Promotion for Polydor/Polygram Records and also worked with Liberty/UA Records and Capitol Records. He also produced records for Columbia Records, Capitol, Liberty/UA, Arista and other prominent labels.
Aki served on the National Board of the Screen Actors Guild; was appointed National Chair of SAG'S EEOC, and was a member of the President's Diversity/Affirmative Action Task Force. He has also been Executive Director of AIM (Asians in Media), Vice President of The Media Coalition of Los Angeles and President of Media Action Network for Asian-Americans (MANAA). He received an Honorary Doctorate from New Dimensions University in 2013. Aki is the President and CEO of Mustard Seed Media Group and the Senior Advisor to Ace Studios in Hong Kong.1934 -. Trinidad, Tobago.
10 westerns, 1957-2008.
The Lost Queue (1957). 1957.
Chinaman's Chance: America's Other Slaves (2008). 2008. Director, writer, actor.- William Yip was born on 25 October 1895 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Terry and the Pirates (1952), Thriller (1960) and Matinee Theatre (1955). He died on 18 October 1968 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Willie Fung was born on 3 March 1896 in Canton, China. He was an actor, known for The Gay Falcon (1941), The Great Profile (1940) and Shanghai (1935). He died on 16 April 1945 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Miki Morita was born on 1 October 1896 in Ueda City, Nagano, Japan. He was an actor, known for North of Nome (1936), The Walking Dead (1936) and Nagana (1933). He died on 3 December 1985 in Fresno, California, USA.
- World War II produced an influx of Hollywood espionage tales and battleground dramas during the 1940s and, as there were only a small supply of Japanese actors working in Hollywood at the time, a number of Asian character actors found steady employment, albeit undistinguished, as various Chinese allies and Japanese enemies. Benevolent-looking Chinese-American Peter Chong from the Broadway stage and radio was one of those fortunate actors. Placed in the secondary ranks along with Victor Wong, Harold Fong and Luke Chan, etc., the top-ranked Asian talent at the time included Keye Luke, Philip Ahn Victor Sen Yung, Richard Loo and Benson Fong. While most of Peter's parts were quite undernourished, a couple of film roles did allow the actor a brief spot of attention before his final fadeout in the mid-1960s.
Born John Kohnie Kuh on December 2, 1898, in Jersey City, New Jersey (various birth years (1994 and 1895) and birth places (China, Honolulu) are still floating about), he was the son of Chinese immigrants Fong Long Kuh and Det Ann Lye. In New York he made an obscure Broadway debut with "Bridge of Distances" (1925), but then managed to continue for the next decade or so with a stream of theatre roles. Billed as Peter Goo Chong (aka Goo Chong), his theatre credits include "Twelve Miles Out" (1925), "Fast Life" (1928), "These Few Ashes" (1928), "House Unguarded" (1929), "Inspector Kennedy" (1929), "Luana" (1930), "As You Desire Me" (1931), "The Social Register" (1931), "Border-Land" (1932), "Jamboree" (1932), "Hotel Alimony" (1934), "Petticoat Fever" (1935), in which he had on of his best stage roles, "Run Sheep Run" (1938), "They Knew What They Wanted," "Beverly Hills" (1940), "The Admiral Had a Wife" (which actually closed before it opened in December 1941 due to the bombing of Pearl Harbor) and "Little Darling" (1942).
Eventually Peter moved into radio and film. In the former medium he was, among many others, the voice of Charlie Chan. As for the latter, he started things off with an unbilled part in the Jeanne Eagels starrer The Letter (1929), which presented a Singapore setting. He wasn't able to focus strongly on the large screen, however, until the U.S. involvement in World War II. Chong then went on to play a number of benevolent Asian types, both Chinese and Japanese, primarily cheerful or dignified in nature but occasionally villainous. The parts themselves were small in size for the most part but throughout the WWII years, he added, if nothing else, an element of authenticity to such dramatic efforts as Mission to Moscow (1943), The Purple Heart (1944), Betrayal from the East (1945)_, and _First Yank in Tokyo (1945), as well as the Danny Kaye vehicle Up in Arms (1944).
War films continued to be in demand in the aftermath of WWII and Peter kept busy, less in uniform than before, and in roles that usually generated kindness and wisdom. Barely seen as a Japanese officer The Beginning or the End (1947) and an editor in Intrigue (1947), MGM employed him for a few of their films -- he played a valet in Easter Parade (1948), a bartender in On the Town (1949), and another bit part in The Reformer and the Redhead (1950). While a number of his roles were servile in nature such as his manservant Wong in Francis Goes to the Races (1951) and a dining car steward on Peking Express (1951), he did manage a couple of significant parts before he left films -- in James Cagney's Tribute to a Bad Man (1956) and alongside Ingrid Bergman in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) in which he played Wang, the bilingual Chinese cook.
Peter's last movie roles were in This Earth Is Mine (1959) and The Mountain Road (1960), playing a Chinese colonel in the latter. By this period he had started focusing on TV and appeared primarily in crime dramas ("The Thin Man" and "Richard Diamond") and westerns ("Johnny Ringo" and "Bonanza"). He retired from acting in the mid-1960s.
Music and composing became a large part of his life in later years. He died at age 86 in Los Angeles, on January 15, 1985, of a heart attack. - Actor
- Soundtrack
H.T. Tsiang was born in 1899 in Kiangsu Province, China. He was an actor, known for State Department: File 649 (1949), Smuggler's Island (1951) and I Spy (1965). He died on 16 July 1971 in Hollywood, California, USA.- Eddie Lee was born on 28 July 1899 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Panic on the Air (1936), Headin' for God's Country (1943) and The Man from Thunder River (1943). He died on 20 August 1979 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Sammee Tong was born on 21 April 1901 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963), General Electric Theater (1953) and The Adventures of Spin and Marty (1955). He died on 27 October 1964 in Palms, California, USA.- Tommy Lee was born on 19 February 1901 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Rooster Cogburn (1975), Kung Fu (1972) and The Sand Pebbles (1966). He died on 19 June 1976 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Bob Okazaki was born on 3 February 1902 in Tokyo, Japan. He was an actor, known for Blade Runner (1982), I Spy (1965) and Hawaiian Eye (1959). He died on 28 May 1985 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Production Manager
Otto Yamaoka was born on 25 April 1904 in Seattle, Washington, USA. He was an actor and production manager, known for The Black Camel (1931), Libeled Lady (1936) and Before Midnight (1933). He died on 5 June 1967 in New York City, New York, USA.1904 - 1967, (63). Seattle. New York City. USA.
2 westerns.
Rhythm on the Range (1936) 1936.
29 credits, 1930-1940.
WWII: American, sent to relocation camp.- Actor
- Art Department
- Script and Continuity Department
Keye Luke was born in Canton, China. He grew up in Seattle, Washington, and entered the film business as a commercial artist and a designer of movie posters. He was hired as a technical advisor on several Asian-themed films, and made his film debut in The Painted Veil (1934). It seemed that he appeared in almost every film that called for Chinese characters, usually in small parts but occasionally, as in The Good Earth (1937), in a meatier, more substantial role. In addition, he played Dr. Kildare's rival at the hospital in the Dr. Kildare series at MGM, but it was as Charlie Chan's #1 son in that series that Luke achieved his greatest recognition. In the 1970s a new generation was made aware of his talents by virtue of his recurring role in the TV series Kung Fu (1972).- Teru Shimada was born on 17 November 1906 in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan. He was an actor, known for You Only Live Twice (1967), Tokyo Joe (1949) and Battle of the Coral Sea (1959). He died on 19 June 1988 in Encino, California, USA.
- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-American movie star, was born Wong Liu Tsong on January 3, 1905, in Los Angeles, California, to laundryman Wong Sam Sing and his wife, Lee Gon Toy. A third-generation American, she managed to have a substantial acting career during a deeply racist time when the taboo against miscegenation meant that Caucasian actresses were cast as "Oriental" women in lead parts opposite Caucasian leading men. Even when the role called for playing opposite a Caucasian in yellowface, as with Paul Muni's as the Chinese peasant Wang Lung in The Good Earth (1937), Wong was rejected, since she did not fit a Caucasian's imagined ideal look for an Asian woman. The discrimination she faced in the domestic industry caused her to go to Europe for work in English and German films. Her name, which she also spelled Wong Lew Song, translates literally as "Frosted Yellow Willows" but has been interpreted as "Second-Daughter Yellow Butterfly." Her family gave her the English-language name Anna May. She was born on Flower Street in downtown Los Angeles in an integrated neighborhood dominated by Irish and Germans, one block from Chinatown, where her father ran the Sam Kee Laundry.
The Wong family moved back to Chinatown two years after Liu Tsong's birth, but in 1910 they uprooted themselves, moving to a nearby Figueroa Street neighborhood where they had Mexican and East European neighbors. There were two steep hills between the Wongs' new home and Chinatown, but as her biographer, Colgate University history professor Graham Russell Gao Hodges, points out, those hills put a psychological as well as physical distance between Liu Tsong and Chinatown. Los Angeles' Chinatown already was teeming with movie shoots when she was a girl. She would haunt the neighborhood nickelodeons, having become enraptured with the early "flickers." Though her traditional father strongly disapproved of his daughter's cinephilia, as it deflected her from scholastic pursuits, there was little he could do about it, as Liu was determined to be an actress. The film industry was in the midst of relocating from the East Coast to the West, and Hollywood was booming. Liu Tsong would haunt movie shoots as she had earlier haunted the nickelodeons. Her favorite stars were Pearl White, of The Perils of Pauline (1914) serial fame, and White's leading man, Crane Wilbur. She was also fond of Ruth Roland.
Educated at a Chinese-language school in Chinatown, she would skip school to watch film shoots in her neighborhood. She made tip money from delivering laundry for her father, which she spent on going to the movies. Her father, if he discovered she had gone to the movies during school hours, would spank her with a bamboo stick. Around the time she was nine years old, she began begging filmmakers for parts, behavior that got her dubbed "C.C.C." for "curious Chinese child."
Liu Tsong's first film role was as an uncredited extra in Metro Pictures' The Red Lantern (1919), starring Alla Nazimova as a Eurasian woman who falls in love with an American missionary. The film included scenes shot in Chinatown. The part was obtained for her by a friend of her father's (without his knowledge) who worked in the movie industry. Retaining the family surname "Wong" and the English-language "Christian" name bestowed on her by her parents, Liu Tsong Americanized herself as "Anna May Wong" for the movie industry, though she would not receive an on-screen credit for another two years.
The rechristened Anna May Wong appeared in bit parts in movies starring Priscilla Dean, Colleen Moore and the Japanese-born Sessue Hayakawa, the first Asian star of American movies. Due to her father's demands, she had an adult guardian at the studio, and would be locked in her dressing room between scenes if she was the only Asian in the cast. Initially balancing school work and her budding film career, she eventually dropped out of Los Angeles High School to pursue acting full time. She was aided by the fact that, though still a teenager, she looked more mature than her real age.
Director Marshall Neilan cast the teenage Anna May in a bit part in his film Dinty (1920), then gave her her first credited role in the "Hop" sequence of Bits of Life (1921), the American movie industry's first anthology film. In "Hop" Wong played Toy Ling, the abused wife of Lon Chaney's character Chin Gow, which the Man of a Thousand Faces played in yellowface. She next appeared in support of John Gilbert in Fox's Shame (1921) before being cast in her first major role at the age of 17, the lead in The Toll of the Sea (1922). She played Lotus Flower in this adaptation of the opera "Madame Butterfly," which moved the action from Japan to China. "The Toll of the Sea" was the first feature film shot entirely in Technicolor's two-strip color process. By appearing top-billed in this romantic melodrama, Anna became the first native-born Asian performer to star in a major Hollywood movie. Most portrayals of Asian women were done by Caucasian actresses in "yellow-face," such as the 1915 Madame Butterfly (1915) starring "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford (who was born in Toronto, Canada) in the title role. In "The Toll of the Sea," Anna May's character perpetuates the stereotype of the Asian "lotus blossom," a self-sacrificial woman who surrenders her life for the love of a Caucasian man. The film was a hit, and it showcased Wong in a preternaturally mature and restrained performance. This breakthrough should have launched Anna May Wong as a star, but for one thing: She was Chinese in a country that excluded (by law) Chinese from emigrating to the US, that forbade (by law) Chinese from marrying Caucasians and that generally excluded (by law or otherwise) Chinese from the culture at large, except for bit roles as heavies in the national consciousness.
"The Toll of the Sea" made Anna May Wong a known, and thus a marketable, commodity in Hollywood. She became the #1 actress when a young Asian female part had to be cast, but unfortunately lead roles for Asians were few and far between. Instead of becoming a star, this beautiful woman with a complexion described as "a rose blushing through old ivory" continued to be stuck in supporting roles, as in Tod Browning's melodrama Drifting (1923) and the western Thundering Dawn (1923). She even played an Eskimo in The Alaskan (1924). She appeared as Tiger Lily, "Chieftainess of the Indians," in Paramount's prestigious production of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan (1924), but the role was very small (the film was shot on Santa Catalina Island, where the cast stayed during the production.
The 170-cm-tall (5'7", although other sources cite her height as 5'4½") beauty was known as the world's best-dressed woman and widely considered to have the loveliest hands in the cinema. Her big breakthrough after her auspicious start with "The Toll of the Sea" finally came when Douglas Fairbanks cast her in a supporting role as a treacherous Mongol slave in his Middle Eastern/Arabian Nights extravaganza The Thief of Bagdad (1924). The $2-million blockbuster production made her known to critics and the movie-going public. For better or worse, a star, albeit of the stereotypical "Dragon Lady" type, was born.
Despite her waxing fame, she was limited to supporting roles, as Caucasian actresses, including most improbably Myrna Loy, continued to be cast as Asian women in lead roles from the 1920s through the 1940s, despite the ready availability of Anna May Wong. She was unable to attract lead parts despite her beauty and proven acting talent, even in films featuring Asian women, but she did carve out a career as a supporting player in everything from A-list movies to two-reel comedies and serials. The characters she played typically were duplicitous or murderous vamps who often reaped the wages of their sin by being raped. It was a demeaning apprenticeship that most Caucasian actresses did not have to go through. Anna wanted was to play modern American women all through her career but was thwarted because of racism. Later, when she journeyed to Europe to escape the typecasting of Hollywood, she told journalist Doris Mackie, "I was so tired of the parts I had to play. Why is it that the screen Chinese is always the villain? And so crude a villain--murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass."
Wong embodied the Caucasian ideal of a foreign exotic beauty, an alien presence despite her American citizenship. The movie magazine "Pictures" published a memoir of hers in 1926 in which she complained, "A lot of people, when they first meet me, are surprised that I speak and write English without difficulty. But why shouldn't I? I was born right here in Los Angeles and went to the public schools here. I speak English without any accent at all. But my parents complain that the same cannot be said of my Chinese. Although I have gone to Chinese schools, and always talk to my father and mother in our native tongue, it is said that I speak Chinese with an English accent!". Many Chinese-Americans considered themselves "Chinese in America," an attitude bolstered by the anti-Chinese, anti-Asian attitude of the US government and the American culture. In her memoir, Wong referred to herself as "Chinese" or "Americanized Chinese," but not as an "American" or "Chinese-American."
Anna May Wong appeared as a dancer in a play within a movie shot in Technicolor for the Ronald Colman vehicle His Supreme Moment (1925), but her Hollywood output generally was undistinguished. In 1926 she seems to have appeared in a "race" film made by Chinese-Americans for a Chinese-American audience, The Silk Bouquet (1926) (aka "The Dragon Horse"). Moving between Poverty Row and the majors, she appeared again with Lon Chaney in Mr. Wu (1927) at MGM and with Warner Oland and Dolores Costello in Old San Francisco (1927) at Warner Brothers. Warners also cast her in support of Oriental yellowface queen Myrna Loy in The Crimson City (1928). Despite her WASP looks and red hair, Loy in Chinese yellowface had become a major "Oriental" star in American films desiring an exotic element. This indignity may have been what pushed Wong to seek her future somewhere other than Hollywood.
She moved to Europe in 1928, where she made movies in the UK and Germany. She made her debut on the London stage with the young up-and-coming Laurence Olivier in the play "The Circle of Chalk." After receiving a drubbing for her voice and singing from the London critics, she paid a Cambridge University tutor to improve her speech, with the result that she acquired an upper-crust English accent. Later she appeared in Vienna, Austria, in the play "Springtime."
European directors appreciated Wong's unique talents and beauty, and they used her in ways that stereotype-minded Hollywood, hemmed in by American prejudice, would not or could not. Moving to Germany to appear in German films, she became acquainted with German film personalities, including Marlene Dietrich and actress-filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. She learned German and French and began to develop a continental European attitude and outlook. In Europe she was welcomed as a star. According to her biographer Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Wong hobnobbed with "an intellectual elite that included princes, playwrights, artists and photographers who clamored to work with her." Anna May Wong was featured in magazines all over the world, far more than actresses of a similar level of accomplishment. She became a media superstar, and her coiffure and complexion were copied, while "coolie coats" became the rage. According to Hodges, "[S]he was the one American star who spoke to the French people, more than Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford or Mary Pickford, the top American actresses of the time." But, ironically, "[S]he's the one who's now forgotten." Wong was cast in Ewald André Dupont's silent film Piccadilly (1929) as a maid who is fired from her job at a London nightclub after dancing on top of a table, then rehired as a dancer to infuse the club with exotic glamour. Her first talkie was The Flame of Love (1930) (aka "The Road to Dishonour", although some sources claim it was "Song" aka "Wasted Love" in that same year), which was released by British International Pictures. In a time before dubbing, when different versions of a single film were filmed in different languages, Wong played in the English, French and German versions of the movie.
Paramount Pictures offered her a contract with the promise of lead roles in major productions. Returning to the US in 1930, Wong appeared on Broadway in the play "On the Spot." It was a hit, running for 167 performances, and she moved on to Hollywood and Paramount, where she starred in an adaptation of Sax Rohmer's novel "Daughter of Fu Manchu" called Daughter of the Dragon (1931). She was back in stereotype-land, this time as the ultimate "Dragon Lady," who with her father Fu Manchu (played by ethnic Swede Warner Oland, the future Charlie Chan) embodied the evil "Yellow Peril." While "Daughter of the Dragon" may have been B-movie pulp, it enabled Wong to show off her talent by delivering a powerful performance.
Her best role in Hollywood in the early 1930s was in support of Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg's Oscar-winning classic Shanghai Express (1932). However, Hollywood in the 1930s was as racist as it had been in the Roaring Twenties, and MGM refused to cast her in its 1932 production of The Son-Daughter (1932), for which she did a screen-test, as she was "too Chinese to play a Chinese." Helen Hayes played the role in yellow-face. Similarly, she was later kept out of both a lead and supporting role in MGM's prestige production of The Good Earth (1937), its filming of Pearl S. Buck's popular novel, after flunking another screen test for failing to live up to a white man's idea of what "looked" Chinese. MGM screen-tested her for the lead role of O-Lan, the sympathetic wife of Chinese farmer Wang Lung (to be played by Paul Muni, personally cast in the part by Irving Thalberg). She also was considered for the supporting role of Lotus, Wang Lung's concubine. Anna, an ethnic Chinese, lost out on both roles to two Austrian women, Luise Rainer and Tilly Losch, as Albert Lewin, the Thalberg assistant who was casting the film, vetoed Wong and other ethnic Chinese because their looks didn't fit his conception of what Chinese people should look like. Ironically, the year "The Good Earth" came out, Wong appeared on the cover of Look Magazine's second issue, which labeled her "The World's Most Beautiful Chinese Girl." Stereotyped in America as a dragon lady, the cover photo had her holding a dagger. Luise Rainer would win the Best Actress Oscar for her performance of O-Lan in Chinese yellowface.
There were practical considerations for MGM's refusal to cast Wong opposite Muni. It was illegal in many states, including California, for Asians to marry Caucasians, and featuring an interracial couple, even if they were playing the same race, likely would mean the movie would be rejected by many theater chains in regions in which anti-Asian prejudice was particularly severe, such as the South. The new Motion Picture Production Code of 1934 forbid black/white miscegenation and MGM did cast Walter Connelly (a white actor) opposite Soo Yong (a Chines-American actress) as a married couple. Anna May returned to England, reportedly distraught at the injustice perpetrated by MGM and her home country. In England she alternated between films and the stage, but she was obliged to return to the US to fulfill her Paramount contract. She appeared in two Robert Florey-directed pictures, Daughter of Shanghai (1937) as a non-stereotypical Asian-American female lead, and Dangerous to Know (1938). She also appeared in major roles in King of Chinatown (1939) and Island of Lost Men (1939).
Anna May Wong did not appear in films from 1939-41, when she was cast as a supporting player in Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery (1941), an entry in the B-movie series. Her last two starring roles in films were in a pair of anti-Japanese propaganda films, Bombs Over Burma (1942) and Lady from Chungking (1942), both of which were made by Producers Releasing Corp., the lowest of the Poverty Row studios. The major studios, when shooting propaganda films requiring a sympathetic Asian lead, reverted to the old practice of casting Caucasians in yellow-face, no matter how absurd the result.
As her movie career went into eclipse in the 1940s (she would not appear in another motion picture until 1949), she found work on the stage and in radio and then in the new medium of television. Wong wrote a preface to the book "New Chinese Recipes" in 1942, which was one of the first Chinese cookbooks printed in the US. The proceeds from the cookbook were dedicated to United China Relief.
Though Wong was vocal in her opposition to stereotypes and typecasting, and was one of Hollywood's more memorable victims of racism in being denied leading roles in A-list pictures because the racist mores of the times prevented an Asian woman from kissing a Caucasian actor, she was considered socially suspect by her own people. The roles she was forced to accept in order to have an acting career, as well as her status as a single woman, disgusted many Chinese in America and in her ancestral homeland, where actresses were equated with prostitutes and where women were still played by men in classical opera. On a trip to China in 1936, Anna May was welcomed by the country's cultural elite in cosmopolitan Beijing and Shanghai, but she had to abandon a trip to her parents' ancestral village when her progress was blocked by a crowd of protesters. Someone in the crowed denounced her with "Down with Huang Liu Tsong, the stooge that disgraces China. Don't let her go ashore." Upon her return from China, Wong was determined to play Chinese characters more authentically, but her only options were to reject roles she deemed racist or to try to soften them from within the belly of the beast. Ultimately for this proud woman, it was a losing battle.
Chinese nationalism had been on the upswing since Yat-sen Sun ended the Manchu Empire in 1911 and was rife in reaction to the war of aggression launched against China by the Empire of Japan. Chinese nationalists, concerned about the portrayal of Chinese people as evil incarnate in American popular culture, were offended by Wong's portrayals of Asians and exotics. Though she would spend the World War II years working for Chinese charities and relief agencies, she was snubbed by Madame Chiang, the sister-in-law of Yat-sen Sun and wife of Kai-Shek Chiang, the army general who led the Nationalist Chinese, during Madame Chiang's 1942-43 propaganda tour of the US. Her biographer Hodges claims this was the beginning of a consensus among Chinese and Chinese-Americans that Wong was an embarrassment. Chinese and Chinese-Americans chose to blame her rather than Hollywood for the demeaning stereotypes she had to play in order to work. The result of this new consensus, according to Hodges, was that "her memory has been washed away."
Anna May's career in motion pictures was virtually finished after the war. She got her own TV series, The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong (1951), on the Dumont Network, playing a Chinese detective in a role written expressly for her, a character who was even given her real Chinese name. The half-hour program, which ran weekly from August 27 to November 21, 1951, was the first TV show to star an Asian-American.
Wong's personal relationships typically were with older Caucasian men, but California law forbade marriage between Asians and Caucasians until 1948. One of her white lovers offered to marry her in Mexico, but the couple's intentions became known and he backed off when his Hollywood career was jeopardized. Wong mused about marrying a Chinese man at times, but the Chinese culture held actresses to be on a par with prostitutes, which made her suspect marriage material. She was afraid that the mores of her culture likely meant that marrying a Chinese would force her to quit her career and be an obedient wife.
Anna May Wong appeared in over 50 American, English and German films in her career, making her the first global Chinese-American movie star. She was forced to fight against racism and stereotyping all her professional life, while simultaneously being criticized by Chinese at home and abroad for perpetuating stereotypes in the media. Despite this tremendous burden, the beautiful woman assayed an elegance and sophistication on-screen that made her the paradigm of Asian women for a generation of movie audiences.
Anna May Wong loved reading, and her favorite subjects spanned a wide range, everything from Asian history and Tzu Lao to William Shakespeare. She never married but occupied her time with golf, horses, and skiing. Wong smoked, drank too much, and suffered from depression. She was poised to make a comeback as a character actress on the big screen toward the end of her life, having appeared as Lana Turner's maid in Ross Hunter's sudsy potboiler Portrait in Black (1960). She was cast in the role of Madame Liang in Flower Drum Song (1961), the movie version of Richard Rodgers's and Oscar Hammerstein II's Broadway musical "Flower Drum Song," but before shooting could begin she passed away.
Anna May Wong died of a massive heart attack on February 3, 1961, in Santa Monica, CA, after a long struggle against Laennec's cirrhosis, a disease of the liver. She was 56 years old. Her fame lives on, four decades after her death. She is a part of American popular consciousness, chosen as one of the first movie stars to be featured on a postage stamp. And the interest in her continues: a play about Anna entitled "China Doll--The Imagined Life of an American Actress," written by Elizabeth Wong, had its premiere at Maine's Bowdoin College in 1997. A lecture and film series, "Rediscovering Anna May Wong," was held at the UCLA Film and Television Archive in 2004, sponsored by "Playboy" publisher Hugh Hefner. That same year New York City's Museum of Modern Art held its own tribute to Wong, "Retrospective of a Chinese-American Screen Actress." Finally she was getting the respect in her own country that was denied her during her career.
A biography by Colgate University history professor Graham Russell Gao Hodges, "Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend," was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2004. Hodges considers Anna May's life and career to be amazing, particularly in light of the fact that her star has yet to be eclipsed by any other Asian-American female star, despite the change in attitudes. Finally, in 2004, the British Film Institute restored E.A. Dupont's 1929 silent film "Piccadilly".- Actor
- Soundtrack
Beal Wong was born on 11 May 1906 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Secret Code (1942), The Big Bluff (1955) and Women in the Night (1948). He died on 6 February 1962 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Kam Tong was born on 18 December 1906 in Oakland, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Flower Drum Song (1961), Women of the Prehistoric Planet (1966) and Have Gun - Will Travel (1957). He was married to Betty Sakata. He died on 8 November 1969 in Costa Mesa, California, USA.
- Olive Young was born on 21 June 1903 in St. Joseph, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Resia Boroboedoer (1928), Kule Yuanyang (1926) and Langnu Qiongtu (1927). She was married to Dr. Alfred Lum. She died on 4 October 1940 in Bayonne, New Jersey, USA.
- H.W. Gim was born on 22 January 1908 in China. He was an actor, known for True Grit (1969), Paint Your Wagon (1969) and I Spy (1965). He died on 15 March 1973 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Tetsu Nakamura was born on 19 September 1908 in Canada. He was an actor, known for Mothra (1961), Madame Butterfly (1954) and Red Sun (1971). He died on 3 August 1992.- Allen Jung was born on 8 August 1909 in Oakland, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Party (1968), Terry and the Pirates (1940) and Murder by Television (1935). He died on 12 September 1982 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Khigh Dhiegh was born on 25 August 1910 in Spring Lake, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor, known for The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Seconds (1966) and Noble House (1988). He was married to Mary Pearman Dickerson. He died on 25 October 1991 in Mesa, Arizona, USA.
- Harold Fong was born on 8 February 1911 in Sacramento, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Steel Helmet (1951), Up in Smoke (1978) and A Yank in Indo-China (1952). He died on 18 June 1982 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Born in Seattle, Washington to a Chinese-American family, Edwin Luke grew up in Seattle and graduated with a B.A. in journalism from the University of Washington. He aspired to be a reporter and writer. He joined the Hollywood Reporter as a printer and linotyper in the 1940s - the first Chinese member of the printer's union. He appeared in TV series through the 1950s, moving on to to a successful career as a Social Worker for Los Angeles County.
- Jerry Fujikawa was born on 18 February 1912 in Monterey County, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Chinatown (1974), Farewell, My Lovely (1975) and Kung Fu (1972). He was married to Marion Gates. He died on 30 April 1983 in Los Angeles County, California, USA.
- Tom Ung was born on 22 September 1913 in Namhoi, China. He was an actor, known for Stick to Your Guns (1941). He died on 14 June 1990 in Los Angeles, California, USA.1913 - 1990, (76). China. California.
4 westerns, 37-41.
Wells Fargo (1937). 1937.
Barber, cook, brickmason. - Clarence Lung was born on 20 October 1914 in Boise, Idaho, USA. He was an actor, known for Secret Agent X-9 (1945), Operation Petticoat (1959) and The Outer Limits (1963). He died on 15 October 1993 in Quitman, Texas, USA.
- Roland Got was born on 6 August 1916 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Across the Pacific (1942), G-Men vs. The Black Dragon (1943) and We've Never Been Licked (1943). He died on 30 November 1948 in San Francisco, California, USA.
- Actor
- Producer
Born in China, Kim Chan fled China in 1928 with his father Lem and two older sisters. Settling first in Rhode Island, then in New York, Kim left his family after his father caught him lying about an afternoon spent at the cinema. Faced with an ultimatum, Kim left for years as a day laborer, occasionally homeless, frequently sleeping on vermin-infested ironing boards.
Yet when he was not laboring in laundries and restaurants, Kim Chan sought work as an actor in film, television, and the theater. Many roles were small, often reflecting racial stereotypes - casting as a Japanese soldier was common in the 1940s. Chan's big break came only in 1983 with his comedic turn as Jonno, the butler to the late night talk show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) in Martin Scorsese's _The King of Comedy (1983)_. Since then he has appeared in numerous roles, seemingly never wanting for work.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
George Wang was born on 12 November 1918 in Dandong, Liaoning, China. He was an actor and producer, known for Huang tian hou tu (1981), The 10th Victim (1965) and Super Fly T.N.T. (1973). He died on 27 March 2015 in Taipei, Taiwan.13 westerns, 66-93.
Colt in the Hand of the Devil (1967), 1967. El Condor. Credited. (Colt in the Hand of the Devil).
1918-2015, 96. China. Taiwan.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Toshiro Mifune achieved more worldwide fame than any other Japanese actor of his century. He was born in Tsingtao, China, to Japanese parents and grew up in Dalian. He did not set foot in Japan until he was 21. His father was an importer and a commercial photographer, and young Toshiro worked in his father's studio for a time after graduating from Dalian Middle School. He was automatically drafted into the Japanese army when he turned 20, and enlisted in the Air Force where he was attached to the Aerial Photography Unit for the duration of the World War II. In 1947 he took a test for Kajirô Yamamoto, who recommended him to director Senkichi Taniguchi, thus leading to Mifune's first film role in These Foolish Times II (1947). Mifune then met and bonded with director Akira Kurosawa, and the two joined to become the most prominent actor-director pairing in all Japanese cinema. Beginning with Drunken Angel (1948), Mifune appeared in 16 of Kurosawa's films, most of which have become world-renowned classics. In Kurosawa's pictures, especially Rashomon (1950), Mifune would become the most famous Japanese actor in the world. A dynamic and ferocious actor, he excelled in action roles, but also had the depth to plumb intricate and subtle dramatic parts. A personal rift during the filming of Red Beard (1965) ended the Mifune-Kurosawa collaboration, but Mifune continued to perform leading roles in major films both in Japan and in foreign countries. He was twice named Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival (for Yojimbo (1961) and Red Beard (1965)). In 1963 he formed his own production company, directing one film and producing several others. In his later years he gained new fame in the title role of the American TV miniseries Shogun (1980), and appeared infrequently in cameo roles after that. His last years were plagued with Alzheimer's Syndrome and he died of organ failure in 1997, a few months before the death of the director with whose name he will forever be linked, Akira Kurosawa.- Tad Horino was born on 14 August 1921 in Seattle, Washington, USA. He was an actor, known for Red Sonja (1985), Kung Pow: Enter the Fist (2002) and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991). He died on 3 October 2002 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Robert Kino was born on 19 December 1921 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Night of the Creeps (1986), Hawaiian Eye (1959) and Tightrope (1959). He died on 27 January 1999 in Alhambra, California, USA.6 westerns, 58-61.
The Sakae Ito Story (1958). 1958.
Black Belt (1960). 1960.
1921-1999, 77. Californian. - Fuji was born on 28 December 1922 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Crimson Kimono (1959), Mission: Impossible (1966) and The Wrecking Crew (1968). He died on 7 May 2008 in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, USA.1922 - 2008, 85. Californian.
5 westerns, 60-68.
Sing Chuck - bodyguard, The Hatchet Man (1960). 1960. - Actress
- Additional Crew
Beulah Quo was born on 17 April 1923 in Stockton, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Brokedown Palace (1999), Chinatown (1974) and Meeting of Minds (1977). She was married to Edwin Sih-Ung Kwoh. She died on 23 October 2002 in La Mesa, California, USA.- Dale Ishimoto was born on 3 April 1923 in Delta, Colorado, USA. He was an actor, known for Beverly Hills Ninja (1997), King Rat (1965) and Kung Fu (1972). He was married to Miiko Taka. He died on 4 March 2004 in Culver City, California, USA.1923 - 2004, (80). Colorado. California, USA.
10 westerns, 1959-1975.
Princess of Crazy Creek (1959). 1959. - Barbara Jean Wong was born on 3 March 1924 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Chinatown at Midnight (1949), China (1943) and The Red Dragon (1945). She was married to Robert Wah Lee. She died on 13 November 1999 in Tarzana, California, USA.
- Gerald Jann was born on 11 May 1924 in San Joaquin, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The Greatest American Hero (1981), Remote Control (1988) and Dimension 5 (1966). He died on 19 August 2002 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Michi Kobi was born on 2 November 1924 in Sacramento, California, USA. She was an actress, known for 12 to the Moon (1960), American Rickshaw (1989) and Tokyo After Dark (1959). She was married to Kim Chan. She died on 1 March 2016 in New York, USA.
- Weaver Levy was born on 14 January 1925 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Adventures in Paradise (1959), Japanese War Bride (1952) and The Wrecking Crew (1968). He died on 8 February 2018 in Murrieta, California, USA.
- Hideo Inamura was born on 26 July 1926 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Varan the Unbelievable (1962), I Spy (1965) and The Wild Wild West (1965). He was married to Takako (Taxie). He died on 27 April 2015 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Ralph Ahn was born on 28 September 1926 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Eyes of an Angel (1991), New Girl (2011) and Suddenly Susan (1996). He died on 26 February 2022 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
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Capable Chinese-American actor Chao Li Chi was born in Shanxi Province, China to a prominent local family. When he was 12 years old, he and his family fled China and emigrated to New York City as refugees from the Second Sino-Japanese War. Academically-gifted and well-versed in the ancient arts of Taoism and Wutang martial arts, Chi became an accomplished dancer who incorporated his physical disciplines into modern dance techniques, touring with avant-garde filmmaker and choreographer Maya Deren. He studied acting through Pearl S. Buck's 'East-and-West Association', and made his debut in Deren's short film Meditation on Violence (1949). Settling in Los Angeles, Chi found regular work as a character actor in film and television. He played the loyal majordomo Chao-Li in all 9 seasons of the primetime soap opera Falcon Crest (1981), and appeared in such movies as Big Trouble in Little China (1986), The Joy Luck Club (1993), The Nutty Professor (1996), Blood Work (2002), and The Prestige (2006). All the while, he continued to practice and teach philosophy and martial arts, co-founding the Taoist Institute in North Hollywood and lead a Saturday morning t'ai chi class every week, for 30 years straight. He died on October 16, 2010 in Granada Hills, California, USA.- Actress
- Producer
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Lisa Lu is a Chinese-American actress. She started her career as a teenager, performing in Kunqu theatrical productions, a traditional style of Chinese opera. The Chinese Civil War (1927-1949) ended with a Communist victory. While the new regime financially subsidized China's theaters for most of the 1950s, it started withdrawing its support by the end of the decade and shut them down during the 1960s. Lu migrated to the United States by the late 1950s, in search of more career opportunities.
In 1960, Lu had her first notable film role as Madame Su-Mei Hung, the widow of a Chinese officer, in The Mountain Road (1960), set during World War II. She joins an American unit in an anti-Japanese mission in the Pacific War, and engages in a brief romance with their leader Major Baldwin (played by James Stewart). The relationship ends when Baldwin burns down an entire Chinese village, and creates thousands of casualties among the innocent civilians he treats as collateral damage. The conflict between the two lovers is based on Baldwin's idea that the end (his mission) sanctifies the means, and on her disagreement with his indiscriminate killings.
In 1961, she played the character of Chinese slave girl Su Ling, in an episode of Bonanza (1959). In 1962, she appeared in the Western film Rider on a Dead Horse (1962) and in the crime-drama Womanhunt (1962). She had a hand-full of television appearances for the rest of the decade. In the late 1960s, Lu found more work in Hong Kong films, most notably The 14 Amazons (1972), in which she played the semi-legendary She Saihua, a female general in the army of Emperor Taizong of Song (who reigned from 976-997).
In 1973, Lu appeared in the American horror film Terror in the Wax Museum (1973). In 1975, she starred in Qing guo qing cheng (1975) as the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908, reign as regent 1861-1908). The film depicts the relationship between the powerful regent and her puppet ruler, the Guangxu Emperor (1871-1908, reigned 1875-1908). She reprised her role in the sequel, The Last Tempest (1976).
In 1977, she had a supporting part in the dystopian science fiction film, Demon Seed (1977), in which the computer Proteus imprisons and forcibly impregnates its creator's wife (played by Julie Christie), in an effort to create a human host for its prodigious sentience. In 1979, Lu had a supporting role in Saint Jack (1979). The film depicts the efforts of small-time pimp Jack Flowers (played by Ben Gazzara) to create a lucrative brothel in Singapore, while defying the control of the local organized crime syndicate.
In 1981, Lu played a nun in Don't Cry, It's Only Thunder (1982), set in the Vietnam War, which depicts a cynical and selfish soldier. When a promise to an old friend causes him to offer volunteer service in a local orphanage, the soldier starts caring about people other than himself. The following year, she narrated the documentary film Sewing Woman (1982), about the life of an immigrant worker, Zem Ping Dong, in San Francisco. In 1986, she had a small role in the adventure film Tai-Pan (1986), set in the aftermath of the First Opium War (1839-1842), and depicting a powerful trader and opium smuggler in 1840s Hong Kong. The film was an adaptation of the 1966 novel "Tai-Pan" by James Clavell. It was both a critical and box-office flop.
In 1987, Lu played Empress Dowager Cixi for a third time, in The Last Emperor (1987). Early in the film, the dying Cixi chooses Puyi (1906-67, reigned 1908-12) as the new emperor of the Qing dynasty, despite him being underage and being outranked in the succession order by his father and several uncles. The film covers the consequences of this deathbed decision. In 1988, Lu had a small role in the mini-series Noble House (1988). The series was based on a 1981 novel by Clavell, and served as a sequel to Tai-Pan (1986), although set in 1980s Hong Kong. It features the descendants of the merchant princes of the 19th century, and the efforts of centuries-old companies to adapt and survive in a changing world.
In 1993, Lu appeared in the generational-saga film The Joy Luck Club (1993), which features the lives of a group of Chinese women, from their childhoods in China to old age in the United States, and their relationships with their Chinese-American daughters. She played the mother of General Shi Yan-sheng in Temptation of a Monk (1993), set in 7th century China. After several years of playing mostly bit parts, Lu played a supporting role in the comedy-drama The Postmodern Life of My Aunt (2006) as the gossipy neighbor of protagonist Ye Rutang (Siqin Gaowa). Lu continued played small roles for the rest of the 2000s.
In 2010, she had a substantial role in the drama film Apart Together (2010) as the aging "widow" Qiao Yu-e, whose husband disappeared in 1949 during the final phase of the Chinese Civil War. Qiao was pregnant at the time. Decades later, her missing husband turns up alive, returning from self-exile abroad. He tries to reconcile with a wife who barely remembers him, and with their son, who has never met him. In 2012, Lu appeared in the romantic drama Dangerous Liaisons (2012) as Du Ruixue, the matriarch of a dysfunctional family. In 2018, aged 91, Lu appeared in the romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians (2018) as Shang Su Yi, matriarch of a wealthy and influential Singaporean family.- Guy Lee was born on 7 March 1927 in Portland, Arkansas, USA. He was an actor, known for How to Steal the World (1968), Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962) and Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (1963). He died on 22 November 1993 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- [Mr. Nakamura] graduated from Farrington High School and the University of Hawaii. A Korean War veteran, he served with a military intelligence unit. He worked in Hollywood during the 1950s in a career that spanned nearly ten years. He appeared in "Go For Broke", Westward, the Women", Blood Alley", "Unchained Melody", "Athena" and "Lafayette Escadrille". In 1961 he entered Federal Service and worked in Okinawa for over 32 years, retiring in 1993. [Upon his death at age 87, he was] survived by wife Koto, son Derek (Joyce), brothers Wilfred & George and sisters Mary Murakami (Charles) and Mabel Nakamura and several nieces and nephews. Private services were held in Okinawa.
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- Actor
- Stunts
David Chow, a graduate of the University of Southern California where he received an MA in economics, was a member of National Economics Society and was the former "Mr. Hong Kong" and California state judo champion. David Chow later was a television actor, appearing on the popular series "Bonanza."
He was an economist, photographer, television producer (Kung Fu Series), and actor. In 1996 he was still living in Hollywood.1929 - 2007, 78. Canada. California.
32 westerns, 60-74.
Little Monk, The Way of the Tiger, the Sign of the Dragon. (1972). 1972.- Actress
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Judy Dan was born on 9 September 1930 in Shanghai, China. She is an actress, known for Kill a Dragon (1967), Get Smart (1965) and The Spiral Road (1962). She was previously married to Tom Fong Woo.- The self-proclaimed "Sex Symbol of Chinatown" was originally born in El Paso, Texas in 1930 and moved to Los Angeles during his early childhood. A graduate of Belmont HS in 1949 was followed by service in the US Marine Corps during the Korean War and earned the Purple Heart as a survivor of the battle of the Chosin Reservoir. Richard Lee-Sung was a popular bartender at Tang's and General Lee's in LA's Chinatown and regularly entertained patrons with "hair" jokes and singing popular songs such as Granada, Getting to Know You and The Fortune Cookie Man sung to the melody of The Candy Man. "Curlee", as he preferred to be called, also sang the most famous "Chinese" love song ever written (Solamente Una Vez) in perfect Spanish! Always using his trademark bald head, large smile, and robust laugh, Curlee was a memorable figure in LA's Chinatown during its heyday. As an actor he studied under and credits Mako and Kathleen Freeman as his life-long mentors and greatest influences on his career. Curlee has been seen and heard on numerous commercials and voice-overs. His roles include some of the most popular characters on TV shows such as M*A*S*H, Happy Days, What's Happening, Hardy Boys, The Incredible Hulk and played an Asian version of Ed McMahon on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. His stage credits include productions with the East-West Players, Pacific Overtures and the Flower Drum Song. He has modeled for print ads in the US and Asia and known in parts of Asia as "Mr. Dumpling".
Richard Lee-Sung resides in the Los Angeles area and continues to tell "hair" jokes. - Actor
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Robert Ito is a Canadian-born actor and dancer of Japanese parentage (Nisei). At the age of five, he won his first amateur tap dancing contest. As "little Bobby Ito", he performed for several more years in singing competitions and talent revues. In adulthood, Ito spent the first decade of his professional career as a dancer with the National Ballet of Canada. He moved to New York in 1960 to appear on Broadway in the dancing ensemble of Flower Drum Song, and, a decade later, acted several parts in the operetta Candide.
In Hollywood from 1965, Ito has been a prolific supporting player in episodic television, usually playing characters of Asian ethnicity in shows like Ironside (1967), Kung Fu (1972), Mannix (1967) and The X-Files (1993). In the 70's, he became familiar to a wider audience for his regular role as Sam Fujiyama, the clever forensic lab technician and faithful offsider of Quincy M.E. (1976) (played by Jack Klugman). He appeared twice in M*A*S*H (1972), respectively as a North Korean soldier and as a black marketeer. Ito played Lieutenant Chang, an officer at Starfleet Academy, in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and Harry Kim's father John in Star Trek: Voyager (1995). On the big screen, he portrayed Commander Minoru Genda (1904-1989) of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the World War II blockbuster Midway (1976). In 1996, Ito was nominated for a Gemini Award as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the telemovie Trial at Fortitude Bay (1994).
Since 1985, he has been prolific as a voice actor for diverse animated series, covering pretty much anything from Rambo (1986) to the The Smurfs (1981), from The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries (1995) to Justice League (2001) and Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005).- Actor
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Abundantly busy and much-loved Asian-American actor who became an on-screen hero to millions of adults and kids alike as the wise and wonderful Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid (1984), the sparkling Noriyuki Morita was back again dishing out Eastern philosophy and martial arts lessons for The Karate Kid Part II (1986) and The Karate Kid Part III (1989), and even for The Next Karate Kid (1994). However, putting all that karate aside, the diminutive Morita actually first started out as a stand-up comedian known as the Hip Nip in nightclubs and bars, and made his first on-screen appearance in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). He quickly adapted to the screen and showed up in small parts in such comedy films as The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), alongside Don Knotts, and in Evil Roy Slade (1972) supporting John Astin. He also appeared in such popular series as Sanford and Son (1972) and M*A*S*H (1972).
Morita got his next break playing the often-perplexed restaurant owner Matsho "Arnold" Takahashi in 26 episodes of the hugely popular sitcom Happy Days (1974) between 1975 and 1976, and again between 1982 and 1983. Morita was quite in demand on the small screen and also scored the lead in his own police drama Ohara (1987), and guest-starred on other high-profile television series including Magnum, P.I. (1980), Murder, She Wrote (1984), Baywatch (1989) and The Hughleys (1998). Although most often used as a minor character actor, he remained consistently busy and occasionally lent his vocal talents to animated features such as Mulan (1998). However, his real strengths lay in portraying slightly oddball or unusual characters in offbeat films. He died at age 73 of natural causes at Sunrise Hospital in Las Vegas, Nevada on November 24, 2005.- C.K. Yang was born on 10 July 1932 in Taitung, Taiwan. He was an actor, known for Shen lin zi hu (1976), There Was a Crooked Man... (1970) and One More Train to Rob (1971). He was married to Daisy Yang. He died on 27 January 2007 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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- Soundtrack
Japanese leading man, an important star and one of the handful of Japanese actors well known outside Japan. Nakadai was a tall handsome clerk in a Tokyo shop when director Masaki Kobayashi encountered him and cast him in The Thick-Walled Room (1956). Nakadai was subsequently cast in the lead role in Kobayashi's monumental trilogy 'Ningen no joken' and became a star whose international acclaim rivaled that of countryman Toshirô Mifune. Like Mifune, Nakadai worked frequently with director Akira Kurosawa and indeed more or less replaced Mifune as Kurosawa's principal leading man after the well-known falling out between Mifune and Kurosawa. His appearances for Kurosawa in Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (1980) and Ran (1985) are among the most indelible in the director's oeuvre.1932 --
East Meets West (1995). 1995.
Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die! (1968). 1968, Today We Kill, Tomorrow We Die!.- Actor
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Born in Japan, Makoto Iwamatsu was living there with his grandparents while his parents studied art in the United States, when Japan and the U.S. went to war in 1941. His parents remained in the U.S., working for the Office of War Information, and, at the cessation of the conflict, were granted U.S. residency by Congress. "Mako", as he became known, joined his parents in New York and studied architecture.
He entered the U.S. Army in the early 1950s and acted in shows for military personnel, discovering a talent and love for the theatre. He abandoned his plans to become an architect and instead enrolled at the famed Pasadena Community Playhouse. Following his studies there, he appeared in many stage productions and on television. In 1966, he won an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his first film role, as the coolie "Po-Han" in The Sand Pebbles (1966). He worked steadily in feature films since.
He appeared on Broadway in the leading role in Stephen Sondheim's "Pacific Overtures", and co-founded and served as artistic director for the highly-acclaimed East-West Players theatre company in Los Angeles.
Following a long battle with cancer, Mako passed away on July 21, 2006, at the age of 72. He was survived by his wife, Shizuko Hoshi (who co-starred in episodes of M*A*S*H (1972)) as well, and his children and grandchildren.- Actor
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Hiroshi Tanaka was born on 1 January 1934 in Kyoto, Japan. He was an actor, known for J.A.K.Q. Blitzkrieg Squad (1977), I Want To (1979) and Death of a Ninja (1982). He died on 2 January 1993 in Tokyo, Japan.- Actor
- Stunts
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Hayward Soo Hoo was born on 3 August 1936 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is an actor, known for Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Sneakers (1992) and A Yank in Indo-China (1952).1936-. California.
The Big Bonanza (1944) 1944.
4 stunts, 67-98.
6 years old in -Bombs Over Burma (1942). 1942.- Actor
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George Takei was born Hosato Takei in Los Angeles, California. His mother was born in Sacramento to Japanese parents & his father was born in Japan. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he & his family were relocated from Los Angeles to the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas. Later, they were moved to a camp at Tule Lake in Northern California. His first-hand knowledge of the unjust internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans in World War II, poignantly chronicled in his autobiography, created a lifelong interest in politics & community affairs.
After graduating from Los Angeles High School in 1956, he studied architecture at UC Berkeley. An ad in a Japanese community paper led to a summer job on the MGM lot where he dubbed 8 characters from Japanese into English for Rodan (1956). Bitten by the acting bug, he transferred to UCLA as a theater arts major. Contacting an agent he had met at MGM led to his appearance as an embittered soldier in postwar Japan in the Playhouse 90 (1956) production. Being spotted in a UCLA theater production by a Warner Bros. casting director led to his feature film debut in Ice Palace (1960), various roles in Hawaiian Eye (1959) &other feature work. In June 1960, he completed his degree at UCLA and studied at the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-Upon-Avon in England that summer.
After starting a master's degree program at UCLA, he was cast in the socially relevant stage musical production Fly Blackbird! but was replaced when the show moved to New York. He took odd jobs until returning to his role at the end of the run. Getting little work in Manhattan, he returned to Los Angeles to continue his studies, once again appearing in TV & films. He earned his master's in 1964. Wanting a multi-racial crew, Gene Roddenberry cast him in Where No Man Has Gone Before, the second Star Trek (1966) pilot. Mr. Sulu remained a regular character when the series went into production. In the hiatus after the end of shooting the first season, he worked on The Green Berets (1968), playing a South Vietnamese Special Forces officer.
After Star Trek (1966) was canceled, he did guest stints in several TV shows, voiced Sulu for the animated Star Trek series & regularly appeared at Star Trek conventions. He also produced & hosted a public affairs show Expression East/West, which aired in Los Angeles from 1971-1973. That year, he ran for the L.A. City Council. Although he lost by a small margin, Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to the board of directors of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, where he served until 1984 & contributed to plans for the subway. During this period, he co-wrote a sci-fi novel Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe. He campaigned to get more respect for his character in the Star Trek features, resulting in Sulu finally obtaining the rank of captain in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), a role reprised in the Star Trek: Voyager (1995) episode Flashback.
He has run several marathons and was in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Torch Relay. He received a star on Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame in 1986. He also left his signature & hand print in cement at the Chinese Theater in 1991. His 1994 autobiography, To the Stars, was well-received. He remains active as a stage, TV & film actor as well as as an advocate for the interests of Japanese Americans.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ernest Harada was born on 20 October 1944 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. He was an actor, known for Death Becomes Her (1992), Volunteers (1985) and Dreamscape (1984). He died on 5 April 2019 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.- France Nuyen was born on 31 July 1939 in Marseille, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. She is an actress, known for Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), The Joy Luck Club (1993) and South Pacific (1958). She was previously married to Robert Culp and Dr. Thomas Gaspar Morell.
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Bruce Lee remains the greatest icon of martial arts cinema and a key figure of modern popular media. Had it not been for Bruce Lee and his movies in the early 1970s, it's arguable whether or not the martial arts film genre would have ever penetrated and influenced mainstream North American and European cinema and audiences the way it has over the past four decades. The influence of East Asian martial arts cinema can be seen today in so many other film genres including comedies, action, drama, science fiction, horror and animation... and they all have their roots in the phenomenon that was Bruce Lee.
Lee was born Lee Jun Fan November 27, 1940 in San Francisco, the son of Lee Hoi Chuen, a singer with the Cantonese Opera. Approximately one year later, the family returned to Kowloon in Hong Kong and at the age of five, a young Bruce begins appearing in children's roles in minor films including The Birth of Mankind (1946) and Fu gui fu yun (1948). At the age of 12, Bruce commenced attending La Salle College. Bruce was later beaten up by a street gang, which inspired him to take up martial arts training under the tutelage of Sifu Yip Man who schooled Bruce in wing chun kung fu for a period of approximately five years. This was the only formalized martial arts training ever undertaken by Lee. The talented and athletic Bruce also took up cha-cha dancing and, at age 18, won a major dance championship in Hong Kong.
However, his temper and quick fists got him in trouble with the Hong Kong police on numerous occasions. His parents suggested that he head off to the United States. Lee landed in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1959 and worked in a close relative's restaurant. He eventually made his way to Seattle, Washington, where he enrolled at university to study philosophy and found the time to practice his beloved kung fu techniques. In 1963, Lee met Linda Lee Cadwell (aka Linda Emery) (later his wife) and also opened his first kung fu school at 4750 University Way. During the early half of the 1960s, Lee became associated with many key martial arts figures in the United States, including kenpo karate expert Ed Parker and tae kwon do master Jhoon Rhee. He made guest appearances at notable martial arts events including the Long Beach Nationals. Through one of these tournaments Bruce met Hollywood hair-stylist Jay Sebring who introduced him to television producer William Dozier. Based on the runaway success of Batman (1966), Dozier was keen to bring the cartoon character the Green Hornet to television and was on the lookout for an East Asian actor to play the Green Hornet's sidekick, Kato. Around this time Bruce also opened a second kung fu school in Oakland, California and relocated to Oakland to be closer to Hollywood.
Bruce's screen test was successful, and The Green Hornet (1966) starring Van Williams aired in 1966-1967 with mixed success. His fight scenes were sometimes obscured by unrevealing camera angles, but his dedication was such that he insisted his character behave like a perfect bodyguard, keeping his eyes on whoever might be a threat to his employer except when the script made this impossible. The show was canceled after only one season (twenty-six episodes), but by this time Lee was receiving more fan mail than the series' nominal star. He then opened a third branch of his kung fu school in Los Angeles and began providing personalized martial arts training to celebrities including film stars Steve McQueen and James Coburn as well as screenwriter Stirling Silliphant. In addition he refined his prior knowledge of wing chun and incorporated aspects of other fighting styles such as traditional boxing and Okinawan karate. He also developed his own unique style Jeet Kune Do (Way of the Intercepting Fist). Another film opportunity then came his way as he landed the small role of a stand over man named Winslow Wong who intimidates private eye James Garner in Marlowe (1969). Wong pays a visit to Garner and proceeds to demolish the investigator's office with his fists and feet, finishing off with a spectacular high kick that shatters the light fixture. With this further exposure of his talents, Bruce then scored several guest appearances as a martial arts instructor to blind private eye James Franciscus on the television series Longstreet (1971).
With his minor success in Hollywood and money in his pocket, Bruce returned for a visit to Hong Kong and was approached by film producer Raymond Chow who had recently started Golden Harvest productions. Chow was keen to utilize Lee's strong popularity amongst young Chinese fans, and offered him the lead role in The Big Boss (1971). In it, Lee plays a distant cousin coming to join relatives working at an ice house, where murder, corruption, and drug-running lead to his character's adventures and display of Kung-Fu expertise. The film was directed by Wei Lo, shot in Thailand on a very low budget and in terrible living conditions for cast and crew. However, when it opened in Hong Kong the film was an enormous hit. Chow knew he had struck box office gold with Lee and quickly assembled another script entitled Fist of Fury (1972). The second film (with a slightly bigger budget) was again directed by Wei Lo and was set in Shanghai in the year 1900, with Lee returning to his school to find that his beloved master has been poisoned by the local Japanese karate school. Once again he uncovers the evildoers and sets about seeking revenge on those responsible for murdering his teacher and intimidating his school. The film features several superb fight sequences and, at the film's conclusion, Lee refuses to surrender to the Japanese police and seemingly leaps to his death in a hail of police bullets.
Once more, Hong Kong streets were jammed with thousands of fervent Chinese movie fans who could not get enough of the fearless Bruce Lee, and his second film went on to break the box office records set by the first! Lee then set up his own production company, Concord Productions, and set about guiding his film career personally by writing, directing and acting in his next film, The Way of the Dragon (1972). A bigger budget meant better locations and opponents, with the new film set in Rome, Italy and additionally starring hapkido expert In-shik Hwang, karate legend Robert Wall and seven-time U.S. karate champion Chuck Norris. Bruce plays a seemingly simple country boy sent to assist at a cousin's restaurant in Rome and finds his cousins are being bullied by local thugs for protection.
By now, Lee's remarkable success in East Asia had come to the attention of Hollywood film executives and a script was hastily written pitching him as a secret agent penetrating an island fortress. Warner Bros. financed the film and also insisted on B-movie tough guy John Saxon starring alongside Lee to give the film wider appeal. The film culminates with another show-stopping fight sequence between Lee and the key villain, Han, in a maze of mirrors. Shooting was completed in and around Hong Kong in early 1973 and in the subsequent weeks Bruce was involved in completing overdubs and looping for the final cut. Various reports from friends and co-workers cite that he was not feeling well during this period and on July 20, 1973 he lay down at the apartment of actress Betty Ting Pei after taking a headache medicine called Equagesic and was later unable to be revived. A doctor was called and Lee was taken to hospital by ambulance and pronounced dead that evening. The official finding was death due to a cerebral edema, caused by a reaction to the headache tablet Equagesic.
Fans worldwide were shattered that their virile idol had passed at such a young age, and nearly thirty thousand fans filed past his coffin in Hong Kong. A second, much smaller ceremony was held in Seattle, Washington and Bruce was laid to rest at Lake View Cemetary in Seattle with pall bearers including Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Dan Inosanto. Enter the Dragon (1973) was later released in the mainland United States, and was a huge hit with audiences there, which then prompted National General films to actively distribute his three prior movies to U.S. theatres... each was a box office smash.
Fans throughout the world were still hungry for more Bruce Lee films and thus remaining footage (completed before his death) of Lee fighting several opponents including Dan Inosanto, Hugh O'Brian and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was crafted into another film titled Game of Death (1978). The film used a lookalike and shadowy camera work to be substituted for the real Lee in numerous scenes. The film is a poor addition to the line-up and is only saved by the final twenty minutes and the footage of the real Bruce Lee battling his way up the tower. Amazingly, this same shoddy process was used to create Game of Death II (1980), with a lookalike and more stunt doubles interwoven with a few brief minutes of footage of the real Bruce Lee.
Tragically, his son Brandon Lee, an actor and martial artist like his father, was killed in a freak accident on the set of The Crow (1994). Bruce Lee was not only an amazing athlete and martial artist but he possessed genuine superstar charisma and through a handful of films he left behind an indelible impression on the tapestry of modern cinema.- A supporting actress, Chinese-American Linda Ho (her birth name was Hoh Lin Dai) was employed whenever an exotic Oriental lady was needed to flavor an equally exotic location. The UCLA graduate popped up in such diverse series as Hawaiian Eye (1959), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), I Spy (1965) and in an episode of I Dream of Jeannie (1965) (as a Chinese spy).
Linda made just a single notable appearance in an American motion picture. This was the campy, though highly entertaining Allied Artists B-grader Confessions of an Opium Eater (1962) (loosely based on a work by Thomas De Quincey). It narrated the tale of an American adventurer (Vincent Price) who infiltrates turn-of-the-century Chinese tongs in San Francisco in order to expose the sex trafficking-slave trade in Chinatown. Linda Ho, in what was certainly her most memorable role, was the seductive Ruby Low, second in command to the chief villain, but later revealed to be batting for the good guys all along. Another second feature of considerably less interest, Dimension 5 (1966), had the actress more stereotypically cast as an assassin working for an Asian crime gang.
In the mid-70s, Linda moved to Hong Kong to appear in such Kung fu action films as The Black Dragon's Revenge (1975), billed as 'Linda Lin Di Ho'. By 1978, she had returned to the U.S., opened a restaurant and faded from public view. - Actress
- Costume Designer
- Soundtrack
Born in Shanghai, China to a banker father and a painter mother. The family left for Hong Kong where Irene attended parochial school and studied ballet. At 12 the family immigrated to New York City where Irene attended George Washington HS and Quintano's School for young professionals and studied ballet and jazz at Carnegie Hall. She was a teenage dancer in Flower Drum Song (1961), directed by Henry Koster who gave her her first speaking role as a teenage prostitute in his next film, Take Her, She's Mine starring James Stewart which launched her acting career.
Her career spans four decades in most of the popular TV series (50 titles) and 32 feature films. Irene was able to cross over to play not only Chinese parts but roles originally written for other ethnicities with the help of casting directors and creative writers/directors. Director Paul Mazursky cast Irene as Shiela Waltzberg, the Jewish princess wife in Down & Out in Beverly Hills. Director Frank Tashlin cast Irene as Ray Walston's secretary in Caprice Irene played a Malaysian revolutionary in Paper Tiger. She was also the TV spokeswoman for Chevron Island Wiki Wiki Dollars for Standard Oil, as well as Hawaiian Punch for Proctor and Gamble
Irene Speaks 3 dialects of Chinese, she appeared in the Peter Chan Ho-Sun's hit Hong Kong film Comrades: Almost a Love Story (1996) and Golden Chicken (2002).
Irene studied acting with Ned Manderino and Milton Katselas in Los Angeles For the past two decades, Irene has been a successful realtor in Beverly Hills. She enjoys helping people body mind and spirit. She teaches Bikram yoga for the Beverly Hills Department of Parks.- IMDB Mini Biography
- Actor
- Soundtrack
A 1960s pioneer of Asian-American theatre, Soon Tek Oh (aka Sun-Taek Oh, Soon-Tek Oh or Soon-Taik Oh) was born on June 29, 1932, in Mokpo, Korea at the time the country was under Imperial Japanese rule. He attended high school at Gwangju, South Korea, and went on to study at Yonsei University in Seoul. His family (including one sister) moved to the United States in 1959, where they settled in Southern California.
Oh studied at USC before attending UCLA and receiving his Masters of Fine Arts in acting and playwriting. Trained in performance at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse, his mounting of a California production of "Rashomon" led to his co-founding (along with fellow actors Mako, James Hong , Beulah Quo and five others) of the renowned Los Angeles' East West Players theatre company in 1965.
Breaking into TV that same year with a minor role on "I Spy," Oh resolved to work against the restrictive servile Asian stereotypes he found himself playing on such 60s TV programs as "The Wild, Wild West," "The Invaders" and "It Takes a Thief." Via the stage, he strove to broaden the types of roles available, which included other theatre troupes he founded or guided (i.e., Korean American Theatre Ensemble). As such, his companies went on to produce a variety of plays from Ibsen ("A Doll's House") and Shakespeare ("Twelfth Night") to Tony-winning vehicles ("Pippin," "Equus, "Sweeney Todd") to original contemporary pieces, several written by Oh himself.
Following unbilled parts as secret agent types in such films as Murderers' Row (1966) and The President's Analyst (1967), he achieve a degree of notoriety in the James Bond feature The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) as Lt. Hip, an intelligence operative. He continued sporadically in films with featured parts in Good Guys Wear Black (1978), The Final Countdown (1980), Missing in Action 2: The Beginning (1985), Steele Justice (1987), Bialy smok (1987), Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987), Collision Course (1989), A Home of Our Own (1993), Red Sun Rising (1994), Beverly Hills Ninja (1997), Yellow (1997) (the first film by and featuring Korean-Americans) and gave voice to Fa Zhou, the father, in the Disney animated classic Mulan (1998). TV roles continued to come his way with several episodes of "Kung Fu," "Hawaii Five-0," "M*A*S*H" and "Magnum P.I.,, as well as a recurring part as a lieutenant on Charlie's Angels (1976) and the quality mini-series East of Eden (1981) and Marco Polo (1982).
Oh and Mako both made their Broadway debuts in Stephen Sondheim's "Pacific Overtures" in 1976. His later stage performances include "The Woman Warrior (1994) and "The Square" (2000). He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008 by the San Diego Asian Film Festival.
Making his last on-camera appearance featured in the action film Gang-jeok (2006), Oh was later diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and forced to retire. He died of complications in Los Angeles, on April 4, 2018, at age 85.- Actor
- Writer
- Stunts
Nathan Jung was born on 29 November 1946 in Bakersfield, California, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Darkman (1990) and The Shadow (1994). He died on 24 April 2021 in the USA.- Actor
- Stunts
- Director
Bolo Yeung was born in China. He began his martial arts training at the age of 10. Growing up he took an interest in bodybuilding. Later he became know as Chinese Hercules after becoming Mr. Hong Kong bodybuilding champion. He held the title for ten years. Because of his impressively muscular physique he was chosen for several bad guy movie roles, with which his first big break came alongside the legendary Bruce Lee in the 1973 movie Enter the Dragon, where he played the role of 'Bolo'. They were really close friends.
Since then Bolo Yeung has appeared in countless martial arts movies, to date, also working on two movies with "The Muscles from Brussels"-Jean-Claude Van Damme in Bloodsport and Double Impact.
Now Bolo still looks great and still regularly trains at his local gym. Martial Arts and Bodybuilding is an integral part of his life and career.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Momo Yashima was born on 4 November 1948 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress and director, known for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), M*A*S*H (1972) and Babylon 5 (1993).- Dick Kay Hong was born on 9 December 1948 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. He is an actor, known for Playhouse 90 (1956), Follow the Sun (1961) and General Electric Theater (1953).
- Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
George Cheung was born on 8 February 1949 in Hong Kong. He is an actor, known for Rush Hour (1998), Starsky & Hutch (2004) and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999).- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa got his first big break as an actor when he was cast in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor (1987). A US Army brat, he was born in Tokyo and lived in various cities while growing up. His father was in the army, stationed at Ft. Bragg (NC), Ft. Polk (LA) and Ft. Hood (TX). His mother was an actress from Tokyo. The family finally settled in Southern California, where Tagawa began acting in high school. He was an exchange student in Japan while studying at the University of Southern California. He has recently been involved off-screen in addressing student groups (at SFSU and Stanford). He has also been coaching the martial artist portraying Shang Tsung in the Mortal Kombat Live Tour, and in his free time developing his new form of martial arts, called "Chun Shin."- Actor
- Producer
Michael Paul Chan was born on 26 June 1950 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for The Goonies (1985), Falling Down (1993) and Spy Game (2001). He has been married to Christina Ann Chan since 11 January 1975. They have one child.- Peter Kwong is a veteran of film, television and stage, best known for his roles as Rain in Big Trouble in Little China and as Tommy Tong in Eddie Murphy's Golden Child. He just finished filming Cooties, starring Elijah Wood, and has appeared in more than 100 film and television roles.
Other favorite films include roles in The Presidio, Angel Town, Never Too Young To Die, Gleaming The Cube, Steel Justice, Theodore Rex with Whoopie Goldberg, Row Your Boat with Jon Bon Jovi and Bai Ling, and Pearl S. Buck's historic epic The Living Reed as the King of Korea. On television you may have seen him in "Sullivan & Son," "Malcolm and Eddie," "Sisters," "The Wayan Brothers," "Daddy Dearest," "Renegade," " Top Cops," "Full House," "Doctor, Doctor". On stage, Mr. Kwong portrayed the lead role as Dr. Haing S. Ngor in The Survivor: A Cambodian Odyssey by Jon Lipsky at the Actors Theatre of Louisville/Humana Festival, and stretched his musical theater skills in Mame with the late Juliet Prowse.
In addition to his thriving acting career, Kwong recently served on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for two terms and served on The Board of Directors of SAG-AFTRA, chairman of the Committee for Racial Equality of Actors Equity Association, and the Vice-Chairs of the Ethnic Equal Opportunities and the Young Performers Committees of the Screen Actors Guild. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences & Television Academy. He has also served with the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Heritage Week. He has emceed events for Visual Communications, The Lotus Festival, Asian Business League, and the Los Angeles Miss Chinatown Pageant four times and had the privilege to go to Namibia, Africa to judge the Miss Universe Pageant.
Kwong's talents have won him an honorary membership in the Los Angeles Mime Guild. He is featured dancing on numerous music videos, including Ed Sheeran's Sing.
He studied Northern Shao lin Kung-fu which has allowed him to do many of his own stunts and eventually branch off to more meditative disciplines such as Tai Chi Chuan and Chi Kung Meditation. He teaches Tai Chi Chuan.