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

The Jazz Singer

19276.1

Dishonored

19316.9

Shanghai Express

19327.0

The Painted Veil

19346.4

Destruction

19151.0

Complicated Women

20036.9

The Fighting American

19246.8

Before Dawn

19335.7

Werewolf of London

19356.1

Charlie Chan at Monte Carlo

19376.3

Sin

1915

The Twin Pawns

19196.8

The Reapers

1916

The Vagabond King

19305.9

Charlie Chan in Paris

19356.6

Charlie Chan in Shanghai

19356.7

So This Is Marriage?

19247.0

Charlie Chan's Greatest Case

19338.0

The Son-Daughter

19326.5

Hurricane Hutch

19216.5

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

19997.3

Infatuation

192510.0

Days of Thrills and Laughter

19616.0

Charlie Chan at the Opera

19366.8

The Yellow Arm

192110.0

The Horror Show

19793.4

Don Q Son of Zorro

19256.7

Charlie Chan at the Race Track

19367.1

Beatrice Fairfax

19165.0

The Mighty

19296.0

The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu

19296.0

Don Juan

19266.6

The Scarlet Lady

19287.0

The Black Camel

19316.1

Daughter of the Dragon

19315.3

Charlie Chan in Egypt

19356.9

Charlie Chan on Broadway

19377.1

Mandarin's Gold

19197.0

Stand and Deliver

19286.0

The Witness for the Defense

19197.0

Charlie Chan in London

19346.9

Paramount on Parade

19306.1

Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back

19345.6

Yellowface: Asian Whitewashing and Racism in Hollywood

20195.7

The Mystery Club

192610.0

Charlie Chan at the Circus

19366.4

Sailor Izzy Murphy

19277.0

The Romance of Elaine

1915

The Third Eye

19209.0

The Drums of Jeopardy

19315.4

Good Time Charley

19278.0

Mandalay

19345.8

The Return of Dr. Fu Manchu

19305.3

The Phantom Foe

19207.0

The Big Gamble

19316.1

Screen Snapshots (Series 22, No. 10)

1942

Charlie Chan at the Olympics

19376.8

Dangerous Paradise

19304.2

Shanghai

19357.3

Charlie Chan's Courage

19348.7

Pilgrim's Progress

19127.0

Charlie Chan Carries On

19317.0

Curlytop

192410.0

Charlie Chan's Chance

19327.3

Chinatown Nights

19294.4

A Million Bid

19277.0

The Faker

19298.0

Charlie Chan's Secret

19367.0

When a Man Loves

19276.0

Patria

19176.5

Dream of Love

19287.3

The Cigarette Girl

19178.0

A Passport to Hell

19325.0

Tell It to the Marines

19266.5

Wheel of Chance

19288.0

The Winding Stair

192510.0

Riders of the Purple Sage

19256.1

Movies on Sundays

1935

Man of the Forest

192610.0

Flower of Night

192510.0

Old San Francisco

19275.8

The Marriage Clause

19269.0

The Lightning Raider

19199.0

As Husbands Go

19348.0

What Happened To Father

19278.0

How to Break 90 #3: Hip Action

193310.0

The Avalanche

1919

The Pride of Palomar

19227.0

The Studio Murder Mystery

19294.7

Twinkletoes

19266.8

East Is West

19228.0

The Naulahka

1918

The Fatal Ring

1917

His Children's Children

19238.0

The Yellow Ticket

1918

The Eternal Sapho

1916

The Eternal Question

19168.0

The Rise of Susan

1916

In Search of Charlie Chan

20067.0