Over four dozen films featuring Charlie Chan were made, beginning in 1926. The character, featured only as a supporting character, was first portrayed by East Asian actors, and the films met with little success.
The House Without a Key is a 1926 American mystery serial film directed by Spencer Gordon Bennet. It is based on the 1925 novel of the same name and is the first onscreen appearance of the fictional detective Charlie Chan, although the main stars are Allene Ray and Walter Miller.
However, the Charlie Chan character was based on a real person, Chang Apana, a Chinese-Hawaiian detective known for receiving permission to carry a 5' bullwhip instead of a gun. Despite being illiterate, Apana was multilingual and was the first undercover policeman in his police force.
Many of us think of Keye Luke as “Charlie Chan's number one son, Lee.” This, of course, is because he was thus portrayed in a number of movies. However, the early films are faithful to the books. (“Charlie Chan Carries On”, for example, identifies Chan's eldest son as “Henry.”)
Biggers. …for the popular literary creation Charlie Chan. A wise Chinese-American detective on the Honolulu police force, Charlie Chan is the protagonist of a series of mystery detective novels that spawned popular feature films, radio dramas, and comic strips.
The actor who played Charlie Chan in that and 40 other films was Warner Oland; like Sidney Toler, the actor who succeeded him in the role, Oland was Caucasian -- Swedish, in fact! But, to Hollywood, Oland looked vaguely Asiatic.
For the first film to center mainly on the character of Chan, Warner Oland, a white actor, was cast in the title role in 1931's Charlie Chan Carries On, and it was this film that gained popular success. Oland, a Swedish actor, had also played Fu Manchu in an earlier film.
Charles Chan (18 December 1914 – 26 February 2008) and Lee-lee Chan (1916 – 28 February 2002) were the parents of actor/director/singer Jackie Chan and the grandparents of actor/singer/composer Jaycee Chan.
What movies did Charlie Chan play number one son in?
"Number One Son" appeared in the last two Chan features, The Feathered Serpent (1948), along with "Number Two Son" Tommy Chan (Victor Sen Yung) in their only appearance together, and Sky Dragon (1949). In both of these films, Luke was older than the actor playing his father.
Of these, only Kuwa and Kamiyama were not Caucasian; they were Japanese, though the character of Charlie Chan is Chinese. Additional trivia note: Though Charlie Chan was never portrayed by a Chinese actor, his “Number One Son” Lee Chan was played by Chinese actor Keye Luke (1904-1991).
You`re six actors short on Chan. Nine have played the Chinese detective: George Kuwa in a 1926 serial; Kamiyama Sojin in a 1928 movie; E.L. Park in a 1929 movie; Oland in 16 movies, 1931-37; Toler in 22 movies, 1938-47; and Roland Winters in six movies, 1948-52.
Miramax has bought the rights to the franchise and hopes to produce several films based on the popular 1930's and 40's series in which first Warner Oland, and then Sidney Toler and Roland Winters, played the detective in 44 films.
Despite his wealth and success, Oland suffered from alcoholism that severely affected his health and his 30-year marriage. In January 1938, he started filming Charlie Chan at the Ringside. However, a week into shooting, he began behaving erratically and eventually walked off the set, causing the film to be abandoned.
Frances—Charlie's daughter—“Black Magic” (aka “Meeting at Midnight”). Jimmy—Charlie's number two son (“Charlie Chan in Honolulu”). Tommy (aka as “Thomas”—Chan's number three son—“Charlie Chan in Honolulu,” “Charlie Chan in the Secret Service,” “The Chinese Cat,” and more. Eddie (aka “Edward”)—Charlie's number four son.
The Chan's Number One Son, and the oldest of the Chan children, is best known as “Lee.” However, the first brief appearance of the Chans' eldest son was in the film Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), in which he was referred to as “Henry,” a name he also carried in the book The Black Camel, by Earl Derr Biggers.
Chan was his wife Chan Lee-lee's surname. Chan discovered his father's identity and changed his Chinese name to Fang Shilong (房仕龍) in the late 1990s, the name he would have been named according to his kin's genealogy book.
Career. Sen Yung made his first significant acting debut in the 1938 film Charlie Chan in Honolulu, as the Chinese detective's "number two son", Jimmy Chan.
The film stars Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka and Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket, alongside David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Noah Taylor, Missi Pyle, James Fox, Deep Roy, and Christopher Lee.
The House Without a Key is a 1925 novel by Earl Derr Biggers, the first of the Charlie Chan mysteries. Set in 1920s Hawaiʻi, the novel acquaints the reader with the look and feel of the islands from the standpoint of both white and non-white inhabitants, describing social class structures and customs of the era.
Chronicling the fraught narrative of one of Hollywood's most enduring cinematic detectives, English scholar Yunte Huang uncovers the untold story of the real “Charlie Chan,” a bullwhip-wielding, five-foot Chinese-American detective whose raids on opium dens and gambling parlors transformed him into a Hawaiian legend.
Who is the most played character in movie history?
Although Dracula is the most-played character of all time in movies and TV, the most-played human character is Sherlock Holmes. Created by Arthur Conan Doyle, the Great Detective made his debut in A Study in Scarlet in 1887, and he became very popular in no time.
In 1946, he starred as Jimmy Chan in two more films with Toler. When Toler died in 1947, Yung was renamed “Tommy Chan, number three son,” and starred in five more Charlie Chan films, with another white American, Roland Winters, in the lead.
