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James B. Leong

Chinese actor (1889-1967) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James B. Leong
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James B. Leong (born Leong But-jung and sometimes credited as Jimmy Leong; November 2, 1889 — December 16, 1967) was a Chinese-American character actor and filmmaker who had a long career in Hollywood beginning during the silent era.

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Leong was born in Shanghai, and he moved to the United States with his parents when he was young.[1] He graduated from Marion Normal College in Muncie, Indiana, in 1915[2] and briefly worked at a newspaper before moving to Hollywood, where he worked at first as a technical director for filmmakers like D. W. Griffith and Wesley Ruggles.[1][3][4]

By 1919, he had started his own production company — James B. Leong Productions, later known as the Wah Ming Motion Picture Company — to show Chinese life as it really was.[5] He had grown tired of seeing Chinese people portrayed as kidnappers and assassins on the screen.[6] Under this banner, he wrote and directed the 1921 film Lotus Blossom.[7] During that time, he had said he planned to write and direct four films a year, though it never came to fruition, with a planned follow-up, The Unbroken Promise, never filmed.[8][9]

He took work as an actor, playing smaller roles in Hollywood films, as well as continuing to work as a technical director and dialect coach.[10] He made money by growing silk crops in the 1940s.[11][12]

He married Agatha Tarwater in 1934; the pair had a son together. Leong became a U.S. citizen in 1958.[1]

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Selected filmography

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As writer-director

As producer

  • China Speaks (1937)

As actor

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References

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