Virginia was correct in her statement above. When Warner Oland passed away, Fox wanted to continuue the hugely popular Charlie Chan series. However, the studio offered Keye Luke much less per film than he had been earning with Oland. This may have been due to Fox' concern that the series would be less popular with a "new" Chan in the lead role. In any case, because of this, Keye Luke moved on to other projects, and Victor Sen Yung became the new son who helped his Pop solve cases with the series remaining as popular as ever.
You may like to take a look at the Keye Luke interview that we have available to read in our "Study" page. There is also another good one at the same place with all THREE Chan film sons, Keye Luke, Victor Sen Yung, and Benson Fong.
>Philip,
>As I understand it, the studio offered Keye Luke a pay >cut to continue in the series after Oland died. He >didn't want to continue for less money so Fox was able >to start with a different son for Sidney Toler's Chan.
That makes sense. I mean it makes sense that that was the reason, though it seems like Fox would want to keep the other part of the team to keep the continutity. Maybe they were unsure if the Toler movies would go over (were the budgets smaller?) so wanted to hedge their bets, or pehaps they just saw the opportunity to save a few bucks.
