Warner Oland

Acting · 1.0 popularity

Age

146

Movies

Born: October 3, 1879 – August 6, 1938
From: Nyby, Västerbottens län, Sweden

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Warner Oland (born Johan Verner Ölund, October 3, 1879 – August 6, 1938) was a Swedish-American actor most remembered for playing several Chinese and Chinese-American characters: the Honolulu Police detective, Lieutenant Charlie Chan; Dr. Fu Manchu; and Henry Chang in Shanghai Express. His family emigrated to the United States when he was 13. He pursued a film career that would include time on Broadway and dozens of film appearances, including 16 Charlie Chan films. After several years in theater, including appearances on Broadway as Warner Oland, in 1912 he made his silent film debut in Pilgrim's Progress, a film based on the John Bunyan novel. As a result of his training as a Shakespearean actor and his easy adoption of a sinister look, he was much in demand as a villain and in ethnic roles. Over the next 15 years, he appeared in more than 30 films, including a major role in The Jazz Singer (1927), one of the first talkies produced. Oland's normal appearance fit the Hollywood expectation of caricatured Asianness of the time, despite his having no definitively proven Asian cultural background. Oland portrayed a variety of Asian characters in several movies before being offered the leading role in the 1929 film, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu. It was the first onscreen portrayal of the Fu Manchu character in film. Oland continued to appear onscreen as an Asian, probably more often than any other white actor in the history of cinema. In Old San Francisco, Oland played an Asian unsuccessfully impersonating a white man. Oland was the first actor to play a werewolf in a major Hollywood film, biting the protagonist, played by Henry Hull, in Werewolf of London (1935). Once again, Oland's character was Asian. A box office success, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu made Oland a star, and during the next two years he portrayed the evil Dr. Fu Manchu in three more films (although the second one was purely a cameo appearance). Firmly locked into such roles, he was cast as Charlie Chan in the international detective mystery film Charlie Chan Carries On (1931) and then in director Josef von Sternberg's 1932 classic film Shanghai Express opposite Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong. The enormous worldwide box office success of his Charlie Chan film led to more, with Oland starring in 16 Chan films in total. The series, Jill Lepore later wrote, "kept Fox afloat" during the 1930s, while earning Oland $40,000 per movie. Oland took his role seriously, studying the Chinese language and calligraphy.

Works

99 films

Dishonored

19316.9

The Jazz Singer

19276.1

Shanghai Express

19327.0

The Fighting American

19246.8

Before Dawn

19335.7

Werewolf of London

19356.1

Complicated Women

20036.9

The Painted Veil

19346.4

The Reapers

1916

Destruction

19151.0

Infatuation

192510.0

Charlie Chan in Shanghai

19356.7

Sin

1915

Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo

19376.3

The Twin Pawns

19196.8

Days of Thrills and Laughter

19616.0

Charlie Chan's Greatest Case

19338.0

Charlie Chan in Paris

19356.6

Charlie Chan at the Opera

19366.8

The Yellow Arm

192110.0

The Vagabond King

19305.9

So This Is Marriage?

19247.0

The Mystery Club

192610.0

The Son-Daughter

19326.5

Don Juan

19266.6

The Witness for the Defense

19197.0

Charlie Chan in Egypt

19356.9

Paramount on Parade

19306.1

Hurricane Hutch

19216.5

Monster by Moonlight! The Immortal Saga of 'The Wolf Man'

19997.3

The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu

19296.0

Charlie Chan at the Race Track

19367.1

Stand and Deliver

19286.0

Mandarin's Gold

19197.0

Don Q Son of Zorro

19256.7

Sailor Izzy Murphy

19277.0

The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu

19305.3

Charlie Chan on Broadway

19377.1

The Big Gamble

19316.1

Charlie Chan in London

19346.9

Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10)

1942

Good Time Charley

19278.0

Charlie Chan at the Olympics

19376.8

The Mighty

19296.0

The Drums of Jeopardy

19315.4

Charlie Chan Carries On

19317.0

The Black Camel

19316.1

The Horror Show

19793.4

Daughter of the Dragon

19315.3

The Third Eye

19209.0

Pilgrim's Progress

19127.0

Yellowface: Asian Whitewashing and Racism in Hollywood

20195.7

Movies on Sundays

1935

When a Man Loves

19276.0

Charlie Chan's Courage

19348.7

Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back

19345.6

The Scarlet Lady

19287.0

Shanghai

19357.3

The Cigarette Girl

19178.0

Wheel of Chance

19288.0

Charlie Chan at the Circus

19366.4

The Phantom Foe

19207.0

The Winding Stair

192510.0

Tell It to the Marines

19266.5

Dream of Love

19287.3

Mandalay

19345.8

Beatrice Fairfax

19165.0

The Faker

19298.0

Dangerous Paradise

19304.2

The Romance of Elaine

1915

Charlie Chan's Secret

19367.0

Charlie Chan's Chance

19327.3

The Pride of Palomar

19227.0

Chinatown Nights

19294.4

His Children's Children

19238.0

The Fatal Ring

1917

Old San Francisco

19275.8

The Studio Murder Mystery

19294.7

What Happened To Father

19278.0

Curlytop

192410.0

The Marriage Clause

19269.0

A Million Bid

19277.0

Riders of the Purple Sage

19256.1

Patria

19176.5

Twinkletoes

19266.8

A Passport to Hell

19325.0

East Is West

19228.0

The Avalanche

1919

Flower of Night

192510.0

Man of the Forest

192610.0

The Lightning Raider

19199.0

As Husbands Go

19348.0

How to Break 90 #3: Hip Action

193310.0

The Naulahka

1918

The Eternal Question

19168.0

The Rise of Susan

1916

The Eternal Sapho

1916

The Yellow Ticket

1918

In Search of Charlie Chan

20067.0