James B. Leong
Born
Leong But-jung

(1889-11-02)November 2, 1889
Shanghai, China
DiedDecember 16, 1967(1967-12-16) (aged 78)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
EducationIndiana State University
Occupation(s)Actor, director
SpouseAgatha Tarwater (m. 1934)

James B. Leong (born Leong But-jung and sometimes credited as Jimmy Leong; November 2, 1889 — December 16, 1967) was a Chinese-American character actor and filmmaker who had a long career in Hollywood beginning during the silent era.

Leong was born in Shanghai, and he moved to the United States with his parents when he was young.[1] He graduated from college in Muncie, Indiana, in 1915[2] and briefly worked at a newspaper before moving to Hollywood, where he worked at first as a technical director for filmmakers like D. W. Griffith and Wesley Ruggles.[1][3][4]

By 1919, he had started his own production company — James B. Leong Productions, later known as the Wah Ming Motion Picture Company — to show Chinese life as it really was.[5] He had grown tired of seeing Chinese people portrayed as kidnappers and assassins on the screen.[6] Under this banner, he wrote and directed the 1921 film Lotus Blossom.[7] During that time, he had said he planned to write and direct four films a year, though it never to fruition, with a planned follow-up, The Unbroken Promise, never filmed.[8][9]

He took work as an actor, playing smaller roles in Hollywood films, as well as continuing to work as a technical director and dialect coach.[10] He made money by growing of silk crops in the 1940s.[11][12]

He married Agatha Tarwater in 1934; the pair had a son together. Leong became a U.S. citizen in 1958.[1]

Selected filmography

As writer-director

As producer

  • China Speaks (1937)

As actor

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Veteran Chinese Actor Becomes U.S. Citizen". The Los Angeles Times. July 26, 1958. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  2. ↑ "Young Chinese, Former Student Here, in City to Exhibit Film Play". The Muncie Evening Press. August 22, 1921. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  3. ↑ "Shadowgrams". The Wausau Daily Herald. June 21, 1920. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  4. ↑ "Brief Notes of Movie Land". The Casper Star-Tribune. December 10, 1922. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  5. ↑ "The Silent Drama". The Cincinnati Enquirer. June 26, 1921. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  6. ↑ "Movie Notes". The Austin American-Statesman. April 10, 1921. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  7. ↑ "The Real China on Celluloid". The Los Angeles Times. June 13, 1920. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  8. ↑ "Secrets of the Movies Revealed". The Evening News. January 13, 1922. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  9. ↑ "Camera Chatter". The Oakland Tribune. December 10, 1922. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  10. ↑ "Behind the Scenes in Hollywood". The Ottawa Journal. January 20, 1934. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  11. ↑ "United States, China Weaving a Silken Noose for Japan's Doomed Industry". The Moline Dispatch. May 6, 1943. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
  12. ↑ "Leong in "Blood Alley"". The El Paso Times. October 16, 1955. Retrieved 2019-11-09.
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