Warner Oland

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Warner Oland, 1916.

Warner Oland , actually Johan Verner Ölund (born October 3, 1879 in Nyby , Västerbotten County , † August 6, 1938 in Stockholm ), was a Swedish - American actor . In the US he was best known as Charlie Chan in the film series of the same name.

Life

Warner Oland was born in a village in the northern Swedish province of Västerbotten. In 1892 he emigrated with his parents to the USA, where the intellectually gifted young man studied in Boston and translated some of the works of his Swedish compatriot August Strindberg into English. After training as a Shakespeare actor in Dr. In 1906 he toured Curry's Acting School with an ensemble starring Alla Nazimova . After several years of stage activity, which led him to New York Broadway , among other places , he made his film debut in 1912 with a role in Pilgrim's Progress , an adaptation of the novel by John Bunyan. From 1915 on, other film roles followed, including in Romance of Elaine , an adventure film with Lionel Barrymore and Pearl White , as well as the films Sin , Destruction and The Eternal Sappho (all three with Theda Bara ).

Since the embodiment of sinister characters was easy for him through his classical training, Warner Oland was soon a sought-after actor for villains and foreigners. Regardless of his Scandinavian origins, Oland's distinctive facial features, which he publicly traced back to his mother's Russian ancestry and which could easily be emphasized with make-up, were perceived in the USA as typically East Asian, and in the majority of his films that have now followed he was viewed as a Far East used as a Far Eastern villain.

Warner Oland began his career as an Asian actor in the 1917 film Patria , in which he played a criminal Japanese baron. After appearances as Indian ( The Naulahka , 1918) and Russian ( The Mysterious Client , The Yellow Ticket , 1918), he first appeared as Chinese in the film The Lightning Raider in 1919 . Other films in which Oland appeared partly as a white man and partly as a Far Eastern man followed, including the crime film East is West (1922), a work directed by Sidney Franklin . In 1926, Oland appeared in Alan Crosland's adventure film Don Juan alongside John Barrymore in the role of Cesare Borgia . Olands first sound film role was the film version of Manon Lescaut from 1927, When a Man Loves in which Dolores Costello , the role of Manon played and John Barrymore her lover Des Grieux . Immediately afterwards, Oland stood in front of the camera for Michael Curtiz .

The best-known film in which Warner Oland appeared is The Jazz Singer from 1927. In this early Vitaphone music film, Oland plays alongside Al Jolson a chasan whose son dreams of a career as a jazz singer. After various other roles, Oland was nominated for the title role of the thriller The Mysterious in 1929. Fu Manchu committed. Further appearances as Dr. Fu Manchu followed suit , including Daughter of the Dragon from 1931, with Anna May Wong . In 1931 Oland was in Josef von Sternberg's war film Dishonored for the first time together with Marlene Dietrich ; Shanghai Express followed in 1932 . In 1935 he played one of the first werewolves in film history in Stuart Walker's horror film Werewolf of London .

Warner Oland first appeared in 1931 in the role with which he was best known: as the cunning, aphorism- spreading Chinese-Hawaiian detective Charlie Chan . Charlie Chan Carries On was the first of a series of numerous Charlie Chan films that the Fox Film Corporation or Twentieth Century Fox produced from 1931 to 1941 and whose title role was always cast with Oland until his death. Oland took Chinese language lessons and traveled to China for study purposes (1935). He also appeared in various other films, e.g. B. in the MGM film The Colorful Veil , in which he plays alongside Greta Garbo a Chinese general who opposes the life-saving measures of the white colonial rulers in times of cholera.

Private life

Warner Oland, who suffered from alcoholism and was a heavy smoker, died at the age of 58 during a trip to Sweden , the country of his birth, of pneumonia made difficult by emphysema . His successor in the role of Charlie Chan was Sidney Toler .

Oland had been married to the playwright and portrait painter Edith Gardener Shearn since 1907, who learned the Swedish language for his sake and who supported him in the translation of Strindberg's works, which they published together in 1912. Because of his alcoholism, she left him in August 1937. Until then, the couple had worked together on a historic farm near Southborough, Massachusetts . Olands ashes were transferred to the local cemetery after his death.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Oland, Warner
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ölund, Johan Verner (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swedish-American actor
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Nyby , Västerbotten County
DATE OF DEATH August 6, 1938
Place of death Stockholm