Background
Luke was born in Canton, China to a father who owned an art shop, but grew up in Seattle. He was part of the Luke family, a relative of Wing Luke, namesake of Seattle's Wing Luke Asian Museum. He had four siblings who all migrated to California during the Depression. His younger brother Edwin Luke also became an actor in the Charlie Chan series. Luke became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1944—in a moment fictionally recreated in Lisa See's novel Shanghai Girls.
Before becoming an actor he was a local artist in Seattle and, later, Hollywood, working on several of the murals inside Grauman's Chinese Theater. He did some of the original artwork for the 1933 King Kong pressbook. Luke also painted the casino's mural in The Shanghai Gesture. He published a limited edition set of pen and ink drawings of The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam in the 1950s. Other art done by Luke included the dust jackets for books published in the 1950s and 1960s. It was through his studio art work that he was recruited for his first movie roles.
Read more about this topic: Keye Luke
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