- Born
- Height5′ 10″ (1.78 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
- 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).
- He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6931 Hollywood Blvd. on 5/10/2022. Jamie Lee Curtis and Daniel Dae Kim were guest speakers at the ceremony. His star is located in front of Madame Tussauds. As of 2022, Hong--at age 93--is the eldest honoree of the award and is actually 31 years older than the Hollywood Walk of Fame itself.
- He has appeared in five films that have been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955), The Sand Pebbles (1966), Chinatown (1974), Bound for Glory (1976) and Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). The latter won in the category.
- 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.'
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content