Keye Luke

Chinese-born actor

• Born: June 18, 1904
• Birthplace: Guangzhou, China
• Died: January 12, 1991
• Place of death: Whittier, California

A noted actor, Luke had a long career in film and television that spanned nearly six decades. He was best known for his roles as Lee Chan, or Number One Son, in the Charlie Chan films and as Master Po in the television series Kung Fu.

Areas of achievement: Acting, film

Early Life

Keye Luke was born in Guangzhou, China, and immigrated to the United States with his family as a young child. He grew up in Seattle, Washington, where he developed an interest in art. After graduating from high school in 1922 and studying at the University of Washington, Luke worked at the Fox and RKO film studios as a publicity art director. He designed posters, drew caricatures of actors to accompany newspaper stories, and created publicity material for such films as King Kong (1933) and Flying Down to Rio (1933). Luke occasionally drew Chinese characters and created painted works that appeared in films. His murals can be seen in Josef von Sternberg’s The Shanghai Gesture (1941) and Macao (1952). Luke also painted murals for the interior of the famous Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, California.

Life’s Work

Luke’s acting career began by chance while he was working as an artist. When director Richard Boleslawski needed a Chinese actor who spoke English fluently for a small role in MGM’s The Painted Veil (1934), Luke was suggested. His performance was well received, and he was encouraged to continue acting. Luke’s connections to influential figures in Hollywood, including gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons (for whose columns he had provided artwork), helped him launch his new career. He soon came to the attention of casting director Jim Ryan, who felt Luke was perfect for the role of Lee Chan, the “Number One Son” of the protagonist of Fox’s Charlie Chan series. Luke made his debut as Lee Chan in Charlie Chan in Paris (1935).

The popularity of the Chan films helped Luke obtain other roles. As an MGM contract player, he worked steadily during the 1930s, though usually in small roles. Because few Asian actors were available, he was regularly loaned to Fox, Paramount, and other studios. His notable films from the period include Karl Freund’s stylish horror film Mad Love (1935), in which he played the assistant to a crazed surgeon portrayed by Peter Lorre, and The Good Earth (1937), an Academy Award–winning adaptation of the popular Pearl Buck novel. Universal turned the popular comic book and radio series The Green Hornet into a thirteen-episode serial in 1940, and Luke was cast as Kato, the hero’s valet and crime-fighting sidekick. Another serial, The Green Hornet Strikes Again! (1940), followed.

While Luke appeared as a sidekick or assistant in many films, he also had a number of less subservient roles. He played Mr. Wong in Phantom of Chinatown (1940), a role originated by Boris Karloff, becoming one of the first Asian actors to play the lead role in a film. Luke also portrayed Dr. Lee Wong How, a hospital intern, in four films in MGM’s Dr. Gillespie medical series and appeared as the same character in an installment of the popular Andy Hardy series, Andy Hardy’s Blonde Trouble (1944). Unlike many other Asian actors at the time, Luke largely avoided playing stereotypical Japanese villains in World War II propaganda films, instead taking the chance to present a positive image of Asian Americans. During this period, Luke married Ethel Davis; the couple had one daughter.

Other well-known films in which Luke appeared include Across the Pacific (1942), Young Man with a Horn (1950), Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (1955), Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), Gremlins (1984), and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990). Luke’s final film role was that of herbalist Dr. Yang in the Academy Award–nominated Woody Allen film Alice (1990). As an actor whose career spanned nearly six decades, Luke worked alongside several generations of Hollywood stars, from Humphrey Bogart to Mia Farrow.

Beginning in 1950, Luke worked more regularly in television than in film. He appeared in guest roles on such well-known series as Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, I Spy, The Andy Griffith Show, Star Trek, Hawaii Five-O, Charlie’s Angels, M*A*S*H, Remington Steele, The A-Team, Miami Vice, The Golden Girls, and Magnum, P.I. In the late 1950s, he took a break from film and television to play Master Wang in Flower Drum Song, a 1958 musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Luke, the first actor to fill the role, played Master Wang for two years on Broadway and for more than a year in a traveling production.

Luke achieved considerable fame for his role in the television series Kung Fu. Appearing in forty-three episodes aired between 1972 and 1975, Luke played the blind Master Po, a Shaolin monk in nineteenth-century China who provides spiritual and martial-arts training to protégé Kwai Chang Caine (David Carradine). Though Master Po is killed in the pilot episode, he continues to appear in flashbacks, imparting wisdom to the acolyte he calls Grasshopper. Luke told interviewers that this was his most satisfying role, and he reprised it for the 1986 television special Kung Fu: The Movie.

In addition to his roles in live-action films and television shows, Luke provided voices for many animated programs, including Space Ghost, The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, and The Chipmunks. He also dubbed numerous Asian films into English.

Significance

Over the course of nearly sixty years, Luke appeared in more than two hundred films and television series, becoming one of the most recognizable Asian American actors in the industry. During eras in which Asian characters were almost always clichés, Luke instilled most of his characters with dignity, largely rejected the Asian stereotypes prevalent in the US film industry, and proved that Asian American actors could fill major and even lead roles. In recognition of his contributions to American film and television, the Association of Asian/Pacific American Artists awarded him the organization’s first Lifetime Achievement Award in 1986. Weeks before his death in 1991, Luke was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Bibliography

Hanke, Ken. Charlie Chan at the Movies: History, Filmography, and Criticism. 1989. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004. Print. Provides plot summaries and analyses of the Charlie Chan films, with much background information drawn from extensive interviews with Luke.

Harmetz, Aljean. “Keye Luke: What the Doctor Called For.” New York Times 23 Dec. 1990: H13. Print. Explores Luke’s careers as an actor and an artist and his experiences working with Woody Allen on Alice.

Huang, Yunte. Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History. New York: Norton, 2010. Print. A chronicle of the development of the Charlie Chan film franchise that includes information about Luke.