Actor James Hong on his amazing longevity

sir i have this under control again   you deliberately disobey me and  cause another mind to be compromised and now you know what we must do that's  actor james hong in his most recent movie   one of literally hundreds of film and tv credits  to his name and ben mankowitz tells us at 93   james hong shows no signs of slowing down  yeah a sit-down interview with james hong can   morph unexpectedly into an episode of dancing  with the character actors should we dance a   little and get some i'm looking forward to  the dance is that now are we dancing now   you have to you have to think this is an old  man james hong can dance all he wants at 93   his nearly 70-year hollywood career is certainly  worth celebrating i've been an actor since   1953 or four uh probably the only living  guy that has worked with groucho marx   that's where it began with groucho we'll get to  that in a minute today 445 screen credits later   hong has been in chinatown blade runner bonanza  the big bang theory and a memorable episode of   seinfeld like that telephone for a cartwright you  know answer she swear and i hang up you might have   been in more movies and tv shows than anyone else  ever i would think so the major you know movies   and tv there's some guys that have been in stage  plays and such you know who goes to plays forget   the 445 credits that he even has four credits is  a tribute to his fierce determination the son of   chinese immigrants hong was born in minneapolis  in 1929. it was chinatown but in minneapolis   chinatown consists of two chinese stores and  one of them was your dad yeah yeah he had an   herb store and we live on the second floor as  a young boy tong didn't speak much english that   made him a target in school i think my class  was you know probably 500 kids i was the only   asian student so the bullies would pick  on me and beat me up so because you know   bullies are bullies right they'll just pick on  the underdog hong's parents wanted him to be   an engineer that's what he studied in college  then he was drafted to fight in the korean war   what was it like to be a chinese-american in the  army one of my army fellow mates there said to me   you know james i think you might have a problem  because if if you are in that american uh   army outfit charge the koreans they will shoot  you because you're an american and if you   retreat the americans will shoot you  also because they think you are a kook   just in an american outfit so he got me a  little bit deterred with that statement you know   hong entertained troops by doing impressions  he got laughs and then he got an idea   after the war he moved to los angeles where he  pursued his new dream showbiz a big break came   when he appeared on groucho marx's radio show you  bet your life where are you from jim minneapolis   minnesota minnesota of course i thought you might  be because hong is a final scandinavian nation next came small parts on tv often demeaning he  was the chinese soldier the chinese prisoner   the guy running a chinese laundry you didn't play  fully rounded characters you played stereotypes   and that's it if you didn't play the roles that  were given to you you you would be not working at   all so in a sense in order to keep up my craft  i had to take these roles as the chinese real   railroad worker or laundromat and so forth though  he was getting more work hong was also forced to   confront racism one incident still stings that's  a very hurtful thing and um i was in london   doing the son of charlie chan it was a rifle  that fired a shot right j carol nash was the um   charlie chan you know every day he had to push  his eyes up like this and he had to push his   eyelid against that piece so that you wouldn't see  the space between you would never bring rifle here   the piece and his own eye of doing everything  you know i that got under his skin so one day   he was on camera i was off camera i miss one line  he says what is this a school for chinese actors   and and you know i was shocked didn't know what  to do he started to advance me i i had my fist   cleansed i thought he was going to slug me or  something you know he walked past and had me fired   and i went to his dressing room and apologized as  i'm sorry mr nash you know i missed the line he   wouldn't forgive me had me fired don't talk  about it just hurts too much so essentially   he got you fired because you had the audacity  to be of chinese descent in a movie filled with   chinese people that's right i think he just was  very prejudiced by the 1970s hong had already   amassed a few hundred credits including playing  faye dunaway's butler in chinatown he's also in   the sci-fi classic big trouble in little china a  role he happily recalls a girl with green eyes to   satisfy him die a girl brave enough to embrace the  naked blade and when i found her i shall marry her   i don't understand more recently he's  been in every iteration of kung fu panda   and just a few months ago hong finally received  a star on the hollywood walk of fame he is a   living character actor legend and a champion  for standing up against racism and fighting   the stereotypes faced by asian americans in  hollywood and beyond in every role i played   i tried to make it a human being and that's  why i think i kept working because i think   not only the studio but the people saw that  james was portraying a chinese as a real person   and not just a cliche character it's not easy  to do to impart humanity into a character   that is written so stereotypically yes  that's true the characters keep coming   and at 93 hong already has projects lined up to  add to those 445 credits are you going to retire   whether it's just nobler in the mind to suffer  the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune to die   okay what was the question now i think we have our  answer you're not you're not retiring what's that   word i mean i if i were making a movie i'd hire  you for something i'd be the first person i'd hire   yeah well it has to be at least double scale okay  well then you're out i knew it james thank you

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 442,317

Keywords: CBS Sunday Morning, CBS News, news, actor, James Hong, longevity, film, tv, character, hollywood, stereotypes

Id: R2DJjaB-xuY

Length: 7min 44sec (464 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 31 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Jarkonian]

What a legend