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By HOLLYWOOD
— Keye Luke, It
was Luke who played No. 1 son in a string of 14 "Charlie Chan" detective movies during the 30s and 40s. Typically,
the two actors who played Chan in Luke's movies were Caucasians: Warner Oland and Roland Winters. A third Charlie Chan in other films was Sidney Toler, another non-Asian. Luke,
born in He
was pleased that Haing S. Ngor, a Cambodian, won the Academy Award for best supporting actor this year for his performance
in “The Killing Fields.” He says he is equally delighted that Pat
Morita, of Japanese descent, was nominated for "The Karate Kid." "It
was a splendid thing for the public to see Orientals honored at a prestigious occasion like the Oscars," he said. "Orientals came into their own to prove they can carry important roles. We've come of age as actors. "Me? I'm a happy hedonist from "The
Chinese laundryman and the Japanese gardener may still be with us, but most Chinese and Japanese now find themselves in the
mainstream of American life." Progress
for Asians in most fields has been rapid, he believes, but in Hollywood advances have been slow in an era when Japanese, Chinese,
Korean, Filipino and Southeast Asian communities in the Luke
was established as a Hollywood fixture when Myrna Loy, Edward G. Robinson, Paul Muni, Richard Barthlemess, Luise Rainer, Peter
Lorre and Nils Asther, among others, played Asians through the magic of makeup and wardrobe. Luke grinned and said,
"I didn’t see anything odd about it at the time and I still don't. Acting
is an art that transcends race and color. When I came to "Now
all of Luke's
first major role was with Greta Garbo and Herbert Marshall in "The Painted Veil," a 1934 MGM melodrama. He went on to appear in more than 100 movies, working with Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner,
Roz Russell, Bette Davis, Alice Faye, Loretta Young, Mae West, Claudet Colbert and scores of others. "I
suppose my most important role was in 'The Good Earth,'" he said. "It
won a lot of Academy Awards in 1937. But my most satisfying role was as Master
Po in the TV series 'Kung Fu.' I was giving the actual sayings of great Chinese
philosophers like Confucius for dialogue. It worked for me on every level." Luke,
who sometimes lectures at colleges and clubs on Chinese art and philosophy, will be seen May 15 in the CBS-TV movie, "Blade
in Hong Kong," for which he traveled to China for the first time in almost 70 years. He
left China as a toddler and returned for the first time when he was 12 and was put to work in the rice fields. "The
memories are still vivid," Luke said. "I would like to return to the mainland
someday, but not until they have a new Hilton or Sheraton waiting for me at the historic sites so I can enjoy American comforts. "I
liked visiting Hong Kong this year because it put to rest some of the objections I hear about 'Charlie Chan' and his No. 1
son being demeaning symbols of Chinese-Americans. "This
isn't true. Chan was a very delightful, respected man in the series and I played
a brash Americanized young man. In Hong Kong I saw four different 'Chan' pictures
playing in different theatres. It's important that young Chinese-Americans know
that."
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