Keye Luke

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Keye Luke

Keye Luke ( Chinese  陸錫麟 , Pinyin Lù Xílín , Cantonese  Luk Shek Lun ; born June 18, 1904 in Guangzhou , Chinese Empire , † January 12, 1991 in Whittier , California ) was an American film and stage actor . He has appeared in over 150 films and has been a guest actor in 40 television series.

Life

Childhood and youth

Keye Luke, whose father had led an art business in China, came at a young age in the US and grew up in Seattle ( Washington on). However, Luke did not receive US citizenship until 1944. His younger brother Edwin Luke (1911–1986) also became an actor for a short time in the mid-1940s. After attending Franklin High School , Keye Luke enrolled at the University of Washington , where he studied art history and architecture .

Career

His career in Hollywood began behind the camera, as an advertising artist and designer of movie posters for feature films. He also worked as a plasterer and building painter, who was responsible for the interior paintings of Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles in the mid-1920s . Even when he was already established as an actor, he kept taking on decoration work. He was the interior designer of Josef von Sternberg's film drama The Shanghai Gesture from 1941.

Luke's acting career began in 1934 when the producers initially unsuccessfully sought a Chinese actor for a supporting role in the film romance The Painted Veil . They resorted to Luke, who was then signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . For Fox , Luke took on the role of Lee Chan in 1935 , who constantly messes with his attempts to detective after his father, the famous detective Charlie Chan . It was supposed to be the character who finally made Luke famous and which he embodied in a total of ten Charlie Chan strips until 1937 alongside Warner Oland and again in 1948/49 alongside Roland Winters . The unfinished film Charlie Chan at the Ringside was rewritten to Mr. Moto's Gamble (1938), with the result that Lee Chan now acted alongside the Japanese Mr. Moto portrayed by Peter Lorre . In 1940's Phantom of Chinatown by Monogram Pictures , Keye Luke starred as Mr. Wong , another oriental detective who had previously been played by Boris Karloff .

Unlike many Asian colleagues, Luke had no trouble getting film offers during World War II . Because of his well-groomed appearance - he was considered a fashion icon in Hollywood in the 1930s - he usually took on medical roles or appeared as a house servant or military officer.

Luke's role in Gremlins from 1984 is particularly familiar to younger audiences . In 1991, shortly before his death, he was also in front of the camera in the sequel Gremlins 2 - The Return of the Little Monsters . Hawaii Five-Zero , Spaceship Enterprise and MacGyver were well-known television series in which Luke was a guest actor. In 1977 he almost got the role of Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars ; however, the part went to Alec Guinness .

In addition to his numerous film roles, Keye Luke also appeared on the theater stage and played 600 times on Broadway in the play Flower Drum Song by Oscar Hammerstein between December 1958 and May 1960 .

Despite his repertoire, he was never awarded or nominated for film prizes. Only one star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame reminds of the actor today.

Private life and death

Keye Luke married in 1942. He had a daughter with his wife, Ethel Davis. His wife died in January 1979.

1990 was Luke in Alice by Woody Allen in front of the camera. It was his last film as he died of a stroke just three weeks after it premiered at the age of 86 .

Filmography (selection)

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Web links

personal data
SURNAME Luke, Keye
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American-Chinese actor
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Guangzhou , People's Republic of China
DATE OF DEATH January 12, 1991
Place of death Whittier , California , USA