1. The Sidney Toler family moved to Anthony, Kansas in the 1880s, then to Wichita, Kansas.
20 Facts About Sidney Toler
1. 2.
Sidney Toler showed an early interest in the theater, acting in an amateur production of Tom Sawyer at the age of seven.
3.
Sidney Toler left the University of Kansas and became a professional actor in 1892, playing the heavy in a performance of a melodrama called The Master Man in Kansas City.
4.
Sidney Toler toured with her for two years, playing the Duke of Buckingham in When Knighthood Was in Flower.
5.
In Brooklyn, Sidney Toler played leads with the Columbia Theatre Stock Company and sang baritone with the Orpheum Theatre's operatic stock company.
6.
Sidney Toler began a prolific career as a playwright, writing The Belle of Richmond, The Dancing Master, The House on the Sands, and more than 70 other plays.
7.
In 1921, Paramount Pictures released two films based on Sidney Toler's plays: The Bait, adapted from The Tiger Lady, and A Heart to Let, based on Agatha's Aunt, which Sidney Toler adapted from a novel by Harriet Lummis Smith.
8.
Sidney Toler earned fame as an actor on the Broadway stage, working for David Belasco for 14 years.
9.
In 1929, Sidney Toler made his first film, Madame X, and in 1931, after the Boston run of It's a Wise Child, he moved to Hollywood.
10.
Sidney Toler played supporting roles in films for various studios, including White Shoulders, Tom Brown of Culver, Blonde Venus, The Phantom President, Speak Easily, The World Changes, Spitfire, Operator 13, The Call of the Wild, Three Godfathers, The Gorgeous Hussy, Double Wedding, The Mysterious Rider, and Law of the Pampas.
11.
Sidney Toler has sensibly formulated his own characterization, a lighter, more affable and less formal Charlie Chan.
12.
Unlike Warner Oland Sidney Toler was still considered a featured player and never received "star" billing for his performances.
13.
Sidney Toler returned to the ranks of freelance character actors, and worked in three feature films and a serial.
14.
Sidney Toler bought the screen rights to the Charlie Chan character from Eleanor Biggers Cole, the widow of Chan's creator, Earl Derr Biggers.
15.
Sidney Toler hoped that if he could find someone to produce new Charlie Chan films, starring himself, Fox would distribute them.
16.
Fox declined, having already dropped the series, but Sidney Toler sold the idea to Monogram Pictures, a lower-budget film studio.
17.
In fairness to Monogram, the new Sidney Toler films continued to please exhibitors and moviegoers, with The Chinese Cat, The Shanghai Cobra, and Dark Alibi often cited as favorites by fans.
18.
Sidney Toler died in Hollywood on October 7,1943, after an illness of seven months.
19.
Sidney Toler died on February 12,1947, at his home in Los Angeles from intestinal cancer.
20.
Sidney Toler is buried at Highland Cemetery, Wichita, Sedgwick County, Kansas, USA.