Cast

Richard Loo

Acting

Cast

Richard Loo

Known for

Acting

Born

1903-10-01

From

Maui, Hawaii, USA

Died

1983-11-20

Biography

Richard Loo (October 1, 1903 – November 20, 1983) was an American film actor who was one of the most familiar Asian character actors in American films of the 1930s and 1940s. He appeared in more than 120 films between 1931 and 1982. Chinese by ancestry and Hawaiian by birth, Loo spent his youth in Hawaii, then moved to California as a teenager. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and began a career in business. The stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent economic depression forced Loo to start over. He became involved with amateur, then professional, theater companies and in 1931 made his first film. Like most Asian actors in non-Asian countries, he played primarily small, stereotypical roles, though he rose quickly to familiarity, if not fame, in a number of films. His stern features led him to be a favorite movie villain, and the outbreak of World War II gave him greater prominence in roles as vicious Japanese soldiers in such successful pictures as The Purple Heart (1944) and God Is My Co-Pilot (1945). Loo was most often typecast as the Japanese enemy pilot, spy or interrogator during World War II. In the film The Purple Heart he plays a Japanese Imperial Army general who commits suicide because he cannot break down the American prisoners. According to his daughter, Beverly Jane Loo, he didn't mind being typecast as a villain in these movies as he felt very patriotic about playing those parts. In 1944 he appeared as a Chinese army lieutenant opposite Gregory Peck in The Keys of the Kingdom. He had a rare heroic role as a war-weary Japanese-American soldier in Samuel Fuller's Korean War classic The Steel Helmet (1951), but he spent much of the latter part of his career performing stock roles in films and minor television roles. In 1974 he appeared as the Thai billionaire tycoon Hai Fat in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, opposite Roger Moore and Christopher Lee. Loo was also a teacher of Shaolin monks in three episodes of the 1972–1975 hit TV series Kung Fu and made a further three appearances as a different character. His last acting appearance was in The Incredible Hulk TV series in 1981, but he continued to act in Toyota commercials into 1982. Loo died of a cerebral hemorrhage on November 20, 1983, age 80. [biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia]

Richard Loo

Richard Loo

Biography

The Man with the Golden Gun

Around the World in 80 Days

The Sand Pebbles

God Is My Co-Pilot

House of Bamboo

Chandler

The Keys of the Kingdom

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing

5 Fingers

Star Spangled Rhythm

Lost Horizon

China Seas

So Proudly We Hail

The Conqueror

First Yank into Tokyo

The Story of Dr. Wassell

Back to Bataan

One More Train to Rob

Soldier of Fortune

Living It Up

Across the Pacific

Malaya

Hell and High Water

The Quiet American

Lady of the Tropics

The Bitter Tea of General Yen

The Steel Helmet

Road to Morocco

Wake Island

The Good Earth

China Sky

Behind the Rising Sun

The Shanghai Story

Prison Ship

Destination Gobi

The Bamboo Prison

Shadows Over Shanghai

Destroyer

Kung Fu: The Movie

The Men Who Made the Movies: Samuel Fuller

Battle Hymn

China Venture

Marcus Welby, M.D.: A Matter of Humanities

Too Hot to Handle

That Certain Woman

China

A Girl Named Tamiko

Flight for Freedom

The Soldier and the Lady

Diamond Head

The Purple Heart

Island of Lost Men

Doomed to Die

To the Ends of the Earth

Mr. Wong in Chinatown

Betrayal from the East

Hong Kong Affair

West of Shanghai

The Fatal Hour

Target Hong Kong

Secret of the Wastelands

The Scavengers

The Amazing Mrs. Holliday

The Clay Pigeon

The Secrets of Wu Sin

Seven Were Saved

Now and Forever

I Was an American Spy

Half Past Midnight

Stowaway

Barricade

Panama Patrol

Daughter of the Tong

Rogues' Regiment

Miracles for Sale

Stranded

The Falcon Strikes Back