Victor Sen Yung - Career

Career

Sen Yung first made his mark in the 1938 film Charlie Chan in Honolulu, as the Chinese detective's "number two son," Jimmy Chan. In this movie, Sidney Toler replaced the recently deceased Warner Oland as Charlie Chan and Sen Yung replaced Oland's "number one son" Lee, who had been played by Keye Luke. Sen Yung played Jimmy Chan in 11 Charlie Chan films between 1938 and 1942. In 1940 he played a minor but crucial role of lawyer's clerk Ong Chi Seng alongside Bette Davis in The Letter

In common with other Chinese-American actors, Sen Yung was cast in Japanese parts during World War II, such as his role as the treacherous Japanese-American Joe Totsuito in the 1942 Humphrey Bogart film Across the Pacific. In the 1942 Chan film. Castle in the Desert, Jimmy Chan helps his father solve a mystery while on leave from the Army. Art mirrored life, as Sen Yung later joined the U.S. Army Air Forces. During his military service, he was replaced in the Charlie Chan series by Benson Fong, who played "number three son," Tommy Chan. Yung's military service included work in training films at the First Motion Picture Unit and a role in the Army Air Forces' play and film Winged Victory.

After the war, Sen Yung resumed his Hollywood career. The Charlie Chan series was now in the hands of Monogram Pictures, with Sidney Toler continuing in the leading role. Toler's health was failing by 1946; author Scott MacGillivray contends that Monogram was conserving Toler's energy and shooting around him wherever possible, even reusing two-year-old footage to finish Toler's last film. To relieve the burden on Toler, Monogram hired his original screen foil, Sen Yung (now billing himself as Victor Sen Young). He and Mantan Moreland shared the spotlight in Toler's final two films, Shadows over Chinatown and The Trap. Following Toler's death in 1947, Sen Yung made five additional Chan films with Roland Winters playing Charlie Chan. Curiously, in the Roland Winters films, Sen Yung played Tommy Chan, not Jimmy; MacGillivray suspects that the producers thought "Jimmy" was too closely associated with the late Sidney Toler and wanted to avoid comparisons.

Victor Sen Young continued to work in motion pictures but moved into television, playing affable or earnest Asian characters. He is probably best remembered as Hop Sing, the cook on the long-running television series Bonanza, appearing in 102 episodes between 1959 and 1973. Sen Yung authored The Great Wok Cookbook in 1974.