Richard Loo

Acting · 1.3 popularity

Age

122

Movies

Born: October 1, 1903 – November 20, 1983
From: Maui, Hawaii, USA

Biography

Richard Loo (October 1, 1903 – November 20, 1983) was an American film actor who was one of the most familiar Asian character actors in American films of the 1930s and 1940s. He appeared in more than 120 films between 1931 and 1982. Chinese by ancestry and Hawaiian by birth, Loo spent his youth in Hawaii, then moved to California as a teenager. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and began a career in business. The stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent economic depression forced Loo to start over. He became involved with amateur, then professional, theater companies and in 1931 made his first film. Like most Asian actors in non-Asian countries, he played primarily small, stereotypical roles, though he rose quickly to familiarity, if not fame, in a number of films. His stern features led him to be a favorite movie villain, and the outbreak of World War II gave him greater prominence in roles as vicious Japanese soldiers in such successful pictures as The Purple Heart (1944) and God Is My Co-Pilot (1945). Loo was most often typecast as the Japanese enemy pilot, spy or interrogator during World War II. In the film The Purple Heart he plays a Japanese Imperial Army general who commits suicide because he cannot break down the American prisoners. According to his daughter, Beverly Jane Loo, he didn't mind being typecast as a villain in these movies as he felt very patriotic about playing those parts. In 1944 he appeared as a Chinese army lieutenant opposite Gregory Peck in The Keys of the Kingdom. He had a rare heroic role as a war-weary Japanese-American soldier in Samuel Fuller's Korean War classic The Steel Helmet (1951), but he spent much of the latter part of his career performing stock roles in films and minor television roles. In 1974 he appeared as the Thai billionaire tycoon Hai Fat in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, opposite Roger Moore and Christopher Lee. Loo was also a teacher of Shaolin monks in three episodes of the 1972–1975 hit TV series Kung Fu and made a further three appearances as a different character. His last acting appearance was in The Incredible Hulk TV series in 1981, but he continued to act in Toyota commercials into 1982. Loo died of a cerebral hemorrhage on November 20, 1983, age 80. [biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia]

Works

95 films

The Man with the Golden Gun

19746.5

Around the World in 80 Days

19566.7

Lost Horizon

19376.9

The Sand Pebbles

19667.2

So Proudly We Hail

19435.9

The Good Earth

19376.3

The Conqueror

19563.6

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing

19556.0

Battle Hymn

19576.6

5 Fingers

19527.5

The Keys of the Kingdom

19447.1

China Seas

19356.2

House of Bamboo

19556.2

Back to Bataan

19456.1

Living It Up

19546.5

Wake Island

19425.9

Hell and High Water

19546.0

One More Train to Rob

19715.4

Malaya

19496.9

Soldier of Fortune

19556.0

The Bitter Tea of General Yen

19326.3

The Steel Helmet

19517.0

Across the Pacific

19426.6

The Story of Dr. Wassell

19446.4

Chandler

19714.6

The Shanghai Story

19545.0

Stowaway

19366.7

Diamond Head

19625.5

God Is My Co-Pilot

19457.1

Too Hot to Handle

19386.0

China Sky

19455.1

The Quiet American

19585.8

Destroyer

19436.8

Lady of the Tropics

19396.5

Road to Morocco

19426.9

The Purple Heart

19446.1

Star Spangled Rhythm

19426.2

The Amazing Mrs. Holliday

19436.7

Rogues' Regiment

19486.8

Destination Gobi

19535.9

The Clay Pigeon

19495.7

Kung Fu: The Movie

19865.3

A Girl Named Tamiko

19625.8

China Venture

19537.8

Doomed to Die

19405.7

Stranded

19356.0

Panama Patrol

19397.5

Confessions of an Opium Eater

19625.8

Kung Fu: The Way of the Tiger, the Sign of the Dragon

19727.2

The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller

20025.8

Flight for Freedom

19435.8

Now and Forever

19346.8

The Bamboo Prison

19546.4

Secret of the Wastelands

19415.5

Prison Ship

19456.5

Betrayal from the East

19456.4

Hong Kong Affair

195810.0

To the Ends of the Earth

19485.9

Student Tour

19346.7

The Fatal Hour

19405.7

First Yank into Tokyo

19456.0

Collision Course: Truman vs. MacArthur

19764.0

The Soldier and the Lady

19377.3

North of Shanghai

19398.0

The Cobra Strikes

19487.5

Shadow of Chinatown

19365.2

China's Little Devils

19456.0

Tokyo Rose

19467.0

Daughter of the Tong

19395.2

Island of Lost Men

19395.6

Seven Were Saved

19476.5

Roaming Lady

19367.0

State Department: File 649

19495.0

Behind the Rising Sun

19436.1

Shadows Over Shanghai

19385.3

Yanks Ahoy

19436.6

Marcus Welby, M.D.: A Matter of Humanities

196910.0

The Falcon Strikes Back

19435.6

Target Hong Kong

19535.8

I Was an American Spy

19516.6

Barricade

19396.5

That Certain Woman

19375.6

Miracles for Sale

19396.5

Half Past Midnight

19487.0

Mad Holiday

19366.4

China

19436.9

Web of Danger

19475.5

War Correspondent

19325.5

Blondes at Work

19386.3

The Secrets of Wu Sin

19326.5

West of Shanghai

19375.8

Mr. Wong in Chinatown

19395.4

The Scavengers

19597.5

Beyond Our Own

19479.0

Women in the Night

19484.0