- Born
- Height5′ 10½″ (1.79 m)
- James Hong was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. He studied civil engineering at the University of Minnesota, but at some point along the way became interested in acting. He graduated from the University of Southern California and practiced for 1½ years as a road engineer with the County of Los Angeles. He took sick leaves and vacation time to do films. He finally quit engineering to focus on acting full time.
He is one of the founders of the East-West Players, the oldest Asian American theater in Los Angeles. He served as president and charter member of the Association of Asian Pacific American Artists.
Hong is one of the most prolific and well-recognized Asian-American character actors of movies and television. He currently lives in Los Angeles and is planning to produce and direct his own films.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Matt Dicker
- SpousesSusan Hong(October 20, 1977 - present) (3 children)Pearl Huang(May 9, 1967 - April 1973) (divorced)
- Children
- ParentsFrank W. HongLee Shui Fa
- Gruff yet softly spoken voice
- Once worked as an engineer for the city of Los Angeles.
- Says his breakthrough came when he appeared on Groucho Marx's game show You Bet Your Life (1950) and did impersonations of Groucho, James Cagney and others, which resulted in a huge flood of fan mail and landed him an agent.
- He has appeared in four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant": Flower Drum Song (1961), Chinatown (1974), Airplane! (1980) and Blade Runner (1982).
- Unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Lt. Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek (1966), which went to George Takei. Twenty years later, his and Takei's characters faced off against each other in The Wish Child (1986).
- Was one of the original seven founding members of East West Players, the Asian American theatre company in Los Angeles formed in 1965, which is still in operation today. Along with Hong, founders include Mako (Artistic Director for first 23 years), June Kyoto Lu (as June Kim), Guy Lee Pat Li, Yet Lock and Beulah Quo.
- All the laundrymen from Minneapolis had nothing to do on weekends, so they would gather at my father's store, herb store. I remember that, because we'd have those little wooden stools and they all gathered there, and they hired these Chinese opera people from San Francisco to come and do their thing ... I was only a little boy. You watch them with wide eyes, 'Wow! What a profession.'
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