KEYE LUKE
June 18th, 1904 -- January 12th, 1991

Above: Keye Luke (left) is probably best known to the non-serial fan as Lee Chan, Charlie Chan's Number One Son. Here he and Warner Oland (seated) as Chan go over some clues.

Along with Duncan Renaldo, the quiet-spoken, dignified Keye Luke was the definitive "serious" sidekick in serials. Like Renaldo, he managed to be colorful but non-comic at the same time. Luke is probably best known today as Lee Chan, Charlie Chan's Number One Son in the Charlie Chan movies. However, he also made five serials, each time playing a competent, intelligent sidekick; indeed, he was allowed to be more intelligent in his serials than in the Chan films, where he was always a sort of "golly gee -whiz" impetuous character.

Luke, a man of many talents, was born in China of American-Chinese parents in 1904; they were visiting relatives in their homeland at the time of Keye's birth. Luke's father owned an art store in San Francisco, and Keye developed exceptional artistic skill, both as a painter and an illustrator. He later studied art and architecture at the University of Washington, and first entered movies as a publicity artist for Twentieth Century Fox; ironically, some of his assignments included posters and artwork for Fox's Charlie Chan series, which had been going since the late 1920s. He moved over to RKO and designed the publicity for such major films as KING KONG in 1934. While at RKO, Luke was called upon to appear in and narrate a short subject on China; it was his clear, accentless voice combined with his Oriental background that got him the part. He decided that life in front of the camera was more exciting than life behind it, and began appearing in more acting roles. An old friend at Fox who remembered him from his days there as a publicity artist signed him for the Chan series, where he found a wonderful acting mentor in Warner Oland. "You might say he wet-nursed me; he brought me up in the business," said Luke later.

Above: Keye Luke (far left), Harold Huber, and Warner Oland question a seated suspect in CHARLIE CHAN ON BROADWAY, another one of Luke's Chan films.

When Oland died in 1938 and Keye's Fox contract expired, Luke left the Chan series to freelance for a while, landing at Universal Pictures, where he made his five serials. The first of these was THE GREEN HORNET (Universal, 1939), an adaptation of the popular radio series. Gordon Jones, who later became best known as a character actor, was nevertheless well cast as Britt Reid, the newspaper publisher who donned the disguise of the Green Hornet to battle the syndicate of racketeers that had a chokehold on the city. Keye was Kato, Reid's faithful valet and the Hornet's trusty assistant. A Korean science wizard whose life Reid had saved years ago, Kato also provided the gas gun, the bullet-proof car called the Black Beauty, and other helpful gadgets that came in useful in the campaign against crime. The serial was an atmospheric, well-done adventure, and its success led Universal to release a sequel the next year, THE GREEN HORNET STRIKES AGAIN, in which Luke again played Kato; however, Warren Hull, a Columbia serial hero, replaced Jones as the Hornet. Keye enjoyed working with Hull, but he never did understand why Universal replaced Jones: "Why they switched over, I don't know. I never could understand that because I thought Gordon was doing very well." I agree with Keye, but the second serial, despite the casting switch, was still as exciting as the first.

Above: Kato (Keye Luke, left) watches as the Green Hornet (Warren Hull) makes a phone call in THE GREEN HORNET STRIKES AGAIN (Universal, 1940), Luke's second serial.

In 1942, Keye signed a contract with MGM, quite a leap from appearing in serials at Universal. He was given the co-starring role of Lee Wong Howe, surgeon at Blair General Hospital, in the Dr. Gillespie series. A spin-off of the Dr. Kildare series which had starred Lew Ayres, the ongoing plot motivation of the series was the competition between Luke and two other surgeons (Van Johnson and Richard Quine) to become Gillespie's (Lionel Barrymore) new assistant now that Kildare had left. As Luke said: "...the rivalry was never resolved. Because once you do that, the audience is no longer left guessing and the series is over." Except for ACROSS THE PACIFIC, with Humphrey Bogart, Keye generally managed to avoid being cast as Japanese spies during World War 2, a fate that befell many Oriental actors around this time. Instead, he was usually cast as Chinese secret agents who helped the Allies battle the Japanese. A good example of this was his third serial part, Captain Wing in THE ADVENTURES OF SMILIN' JACK, for which he was loaned to Universal by MGM. As Wing, a Chinese resistance fighter, Keye helped American flyer Jack Martin (Tom Brown) combat the Japanese secret society known as the Black Samurai, who had allied themselves with German spy Fraulein Von Teufel (Rose Hobart) for the destruction of the Allied war effort. SMILIN' JACK, one of Universal's best serials, interestingly paired Luke with Sidney Toler, who had succeeded Warner Oland as Charlie Chan. Toler played Luke's squadron commander, and, as Keye said: "we used to laugh about how close we had come to playing father and son."

Above: A newspaper publicity photo featuring Keye Luke as Captain Wing in THE ADVENTURES OF SMILIN' JACK (Universal, 1942).

Above: Keye Luke (right) and Tom Brown (left) force a seated Japanese to make a radio call in ADVENTURES OF SMILIN' JACK (Universal, 1942).

Unlike many actors, Keye had no ego problem when it came to doing serials. Even while continuing in the Gillespie series, he journeyed over to Universal for another cliffhanger, SECRET AGENT X-9 in 1945. A WW2 serial like SMILIN' JACK, X-9 was also a sequel to Universal's 1937 release of the same title. Both serials were based on a comic strip character created by Alex Raymond. A young Lloyd Bridges, little dreaming of his future career, played the hero, Agent Phil Corrigan, whose code name was X-9. Luke was Ah Fong, a Chinese agent who helped X-9 battle the Japanese spy Nabuara (Victoria Horne) by posing as a card dealer in a criminal den on Shadow Island and gathering information. Keye shared most of the action with Bridges, and ultimately destroyed Nabura in the last chapter by tricking her own men into bombing her escaping sub. Long unseen, the serial has acquired a reputation as one of the best of the later Universals. We will finally have a chance to judge that for ourselves, as X-9 has recently been released on video.

Above: Keye Luke (top) seems to be winning his fistfight against an enemy agent (Ted Hecht) in this lobbycard from SECRET AGENT X-9 (Universal, 1945).

Luke's final serial was LOST CITY OF THE JUNGLE (Universal, 1946). Regarded by most as the weakest of Keye's cliffhanger, Luke didn't even remember making the serial when asked about it in an interview, which may have had something to do with the fact that Universal used a lot of stock footage from other films in compiling the serial. Keye was Tal Shan, an agent of the World Peace Organization, who joined with investigator hero Russell Hayden to stop warmonger Sir Eric Hazarias (Lionel Atwill) from bringing on a third world war with his devastating weapon known as Meterorium 245. Another facet of the serial that leads to its being disdained is the fact that Atwill died halfway through production and was doubled by another actor for the remainder of the cliffhanger. Still, Keye's last serial has its share of devoted fans.

Above: Keye Luke, gun in hand, leans across the title letters on this poster for LOST CITY OF THE JUNGLE (Universal, 1946). Heroine Jane Adams cowers behind Keye; below them is villain Lionel Atwill. Henchman Dick Curtis is breaking out of the underbrush on the far left, along with an unidentified player.

Luke concluded the Gillespie series in 1947, and then returned to his part of Lee Chan for three more films, this time at Monogram with Roland Winters as Chan. Keye continued in films for around ten years more, than entered on yet another career on Broadway, where his most famous role was as Mr. Wong in FLOWER DRUM SONG; he played this part no less than 601 times. He also worked on TV, and began to make a re-emergence in films as a character actor in the late eighties and early nineties. He passed away in 1991, the year after the re-release to TV of his first serial, THE GREEN HORNET.

Keye was beloved by all serial fans for his personality, his friendly politeness, and most of all for his great respect for the cliffhanger form. He defined the ideal of serial performing well. As he once said:

"...even though serial were made primarily for younger audiences, the actors who worked in them took their assignments very seriously...Whatever we thought of the material objectively, as actors we tried to made it as real and sincere as possible. Being professionals, we realized we were working for an audience, and consequently, strove to hold their attention and not play false with them."

Well said, Mr. Luke, well said!