Following his barn-burning SAG Awards speech, James Hong is sharing more details about his early acting career and being an Asian American in Hollywood, including the time a prominent white actor had him fired from a television series in a racist outburst early on in his career.
In 1957, he joined crime drama series The New Adventures Of Charlie Chan as Barry Chan, the “number one son” of the title character. The lead role went to the late J. Carrol Naish, a white actor known for his prolific work during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Being white, the crew had to tape Naish’s eyes back in order for him to play Charlie Chan.
“It sickened me to watch somebody glue their eyes so that they would look Chinese,” Hong says in the interview with The Guardian. “That upset me inside, but I did my role.”
That is, until the day Naish got him fired for a simple mistake.
“One day I was off stage, just giving him the lines, and he’s on camera. I happened to miss one line,” Hong explains. “He just charged up to me and said: ‘What do you think this is? A school for Chinese actors?’ I was shocked; I didn’t know what to do. He came at me and I was ready to fight. But he didn’t swing—he just went to his dressing room.”
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Hong later learned Naish presented an ultimatum to the producers: Either Hong goes, or he does.
“He had me fired. That shows you the deep prejudice he had inside. That hurt a lot. It took me years to recover from that. I had to go see a psychiatrist,” Hong says of the incident.
While the tide is certainly turning when it comes to the array of roles offered to Asian actors and their treatment on sets, Hong acknowledges that the work is far from over.
“We were not important people in the United States as far as the film industry was concerned,” Hong says. “Until about 10 years ago when we started to win awards. So it’s been a journey from ground zero…
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