Keye Luke

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Keye Luke

Luke in Charlie Chan publicity photo
Born June 18, 1904
Guangzhou, China
Died January 12, 1991 (aged 86)
Whittier, California, USA

Keye Luke (陸錫麒 Cantonese: Lo Sek Lam Pinyin: Lù Xílín) (June 18, 1904January 12, 1991) was a Chinese-born American actor.

Luke was born in Canton, China to a father who owned an art shop,[1] and grew up in Seattle. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1944. Before becoming an actor he was a local artist in Hollywood and worked on several of the murals inside Grauman's Chinese Theater.

Luke made his film debut in The Painted Veil in 1934, and the following year gained his first big role, as Charlie Chan's eldest son in Charlie Chan in Paris. It was a role he would continue to play, on and off, until The Sky Dragon in 1949, in which, having outlasted two stars of the series, he was older than the actor then playing his father. In 1972, he became the first actor of Chinese descent to play Charlie Chan himself, supplying the voice of "Mr. Chan" in the animated television series The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan. He was also known for his role of Master Po in the television series, Kung Fu.

Luke as Master Po
Luke as Master Po

Luke was the first to voice Brak on Space Ghost. Luke was replaced after his death by Andy Merrill. He did some of the original artwork for the original King Kong pressbook. He played The Green Hornet's Japanese sidekick Kato in two movies in the early 1940s. Luke played the mysterious old Chinatown shopowner Mr. Wing in the two Gremlins movies. He had a significant role in Woody Allen's 1990] movie Alice, was the voice of Zoltar and Colonel Cronus in Battle of the Planets, played Governor Donald Cory in a 1969 episode of Star Trek entitled "Whom Gods Destroy", and was going to play Doctor Noonien Soong in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Brothers", but died before shooting started; Brent Spiner took over the role.

Luke also provided the voice of the evil Mr. Han in Enter the Dragon starring Bruce Lee, and costarred in Mr. Moto's Gamble as Lee Chan. The film was reworked as a Mr. Moto film after the death of Warner Oland.

In the Fractured Fairy Tales episode "The Enchanted Fly," one of the rewards offered to the man who would rescue and marry the princess is "an autographed picture of Keye Luke".

He appeared in a few episodes of Dragnet, including roles as a restaurant owner in "The Big Amateur" and a jade dealer in "The Jade Story." He appeared also in episodes of M*A*S*H; most memorably "Patent 4077," in which he was an itinerant metalsmith who made a surgical clamp the surgeons needed for a critical operation.

  • Ken Hanke, Charlie Chan at the Movies Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1989. ISBN 0786419210. Examination of the Charlie Chan feature films, with firsthand commentary by Keye Luke

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