Keye Luke

Keye Luke
File:Keye Luke publicity 1.jpg Luke in Charlie Chan publicity photo

Keye Luke (陸錫麒 Cantonese: Lo Sek Lam Pinyin: Lù Xílín) (June 18, 1904–January 12, 1991) was a Chinese-born actor in American films.

Biography

Luke was born in Canton, China to a father who owned an art shop, and grew up in Seattle. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1944. Before becoming an actor he was a local artist in Hollywood, and worked on several of the murals inside Grauman's Chinese Theater. He did some of the original artwork for the 1933 King Kong pressbook.

Luke made his film debut in The Painted Veil in 1934, and the following year gained his first big role, as Charlie Chan's eldest son in Charlie Chan in Paris. He worked so well with Warner Oland, the actor playing Chan, that "Number One Son" became a regular character in the series, alternately helping and distracting "Pop" Chan in each of his murder cases.

Keye Luke left the Charlie Chan series in 1938, shortly after Oland died. The unfinished Oland-Luke film Charlie Chan at the Fights was completed as Mr. Moto's Gamble, with Luke now opposite Peter Lorre.

Unlike some performers who failed to establish themselves beyond a single role, Keye Luke continued to work prolifically in Hollywood, at studios both large and small. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cast him in a recurring role in its Dr. Kildare film series, and Monogram Pictures featured him in its Frankie Darro comedies and starred him in Mr. Wong in Chinatown. RKO Radio Pictures used him in its popular adventures of The Falcon and Mexican Spitfire. Luke also worked at Universal Pictures, where he played two-fisted chauffeir Kato in its Green Hornet serials. In 1946 Universal mounted a low-budget serial consisting largely of action footage from older films; Keye Luke was hired to match old footage of Sabu in the serial Lost City of the Jungle.

In 1948 Keye Luke returned to the Chan mysteries, which were now being produced by Monogram and starred Roland Winters as Chan. "Number One Son" appeared in two features, The Feathered Serpent and Sky Dragon. (Luke was older than the actor playing his father!)

Luke continued to play character parts in motion pictures; he provided the voice of the evil Mr. Han in Enter the Dragon starring Bruce Lee. Luke played the mysterious old Chinatown shopowner Mr. Wing in the two Gremlins movies, he had a significant role in Woody Allen's 1990 movie Alice, and was the voice of Zoltar and Colonel Cronus in Battle of the Planets.

Keye Luke also worked in television. In 1972, "Number One Son" ascended to the role of Charlie Chan himself, thus becoming the first actor of Chinese descent to play the role: he supplied the voice of "Mr. Chan" in the animated television series The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan. He was also known for his role of Master Po in the television series, Kung Fu. He appeared in a few episodes of Dragnet, including roles as a restaurant owner in "The Big Amateur" and a jade dealer in "The Jade Story." He appeared also in episodes of M*A*S*H; most memorably "Patent 4077," in which he was an itinerant metalsmith who made a surgical clamp the surgeons needed for a critical operation.

Luke was the first to voice Brak on Space Ghost. Luke was replaced after his death by Andy Merrill. He played Governor Donald Cory in a 1969 episode of Star Trek entitled "Whom Gods Destroy", and was going to play Doctor Noonien Soong in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Brothers", but died before shooting started; Brent Spiner took over the role.

File:Keye luke publicity.jpg

Luke as Master Po

Trivia

In the Fractured Fairy Tales episode "The Enchanted Fly," one of the rewards offered to the man who would rescue and marry the princess is "an autographed picture of Keye Luke".

Further reading

• Ken Hanke, Charlie Chan at the Movies Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1989. ISBN 0786419210. (Examination of the Charlie Chan feature films, with firsthand commentary by Keye Luke)
• Herbie J. Pilato, The Kung Fu Book of Caine: The Complete Guide to TV's First Mystical Eastern Western. Boston: Charles A. Tuttle, 1993. ISBN 0-8048-1826-6

External links

• Keye Luke at IMDb
• Keye Luke at Memory Alpha