Last night I saw a Chan actor, Donald Woods, who was newspaper reporter "Speed" Patten in "Charlie Chan on Broadway" (1937) appear in "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (1953). As the genre of the latter movie and thus the actor's role was so different from his role in the Chan picture, I got to thinking of other Chan actors who later appeared in completely different types of film roles. Can you come up with any?
Donald Woods also played Perry Mason in the movie "The Case of the Stuttering Bishop", which was one of the six full-length Perry Mason movies made in the 1930's.
We all remember Victor Sen Yung as Hop-Sing on the Bonanza TV series. Also, three of Charlie Chan's "main sons" (Keye Luke, Victor Sen Yung, and Benson Fong) all appeared in separate episodes of the Perry Mason TV show.
I thought somewhere I read they were doing a remake of the Perry Mason show. Has anyone seen that? Of course kind of hard to replace Raymond Burr! I just watched him last night on TCM in "Rear Window" with Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly...awesome!
OK, here's one for ya. What female actress appeared in both a Chan and Holmes movie? :)
Well, I can think of one actress right off the bat! Mary Gordon who played "Mrs. Hudson" in the Rathbone-Bruce SHERLOCK HOLMES films, played a grandmother whose grand-daughter has disappeared in a CHARLIE CHAN film. I'm a bit over-tired and I can't think of the film right now. I KNOW most of you will know which film I'm thinking of! The detective who helps Charlie out - or I should say, pretends to do so - is one of the bad guys!
Leonard, correct! She was starred as Mrs. Hudson in at least 6 Sherlock Holmes episodes and now I see she was in 2 Charlie Chan films, "Shadows Over Chinatown (1946)" and "The Black Camel (1931)". Remarkably, she also starred in "Frankenstein," "Bride of Frankenstein," and "The Invisible Man!" What a career...and what a memory you have :)
