1. Warner Oland's career included time on Broadway and numerous film appearances.
11 Facts About Warner Oland
1. 2.
Warner Oland is most remembered for playing several Chinese and Chinese-American characters: Dr Fu Manchu, Henry Chang in Shanghai Express, and, most notably, Honolulu Police detective Lieutenant Charlie Chan in 16 films.
3.
Warner Oland claimed that his vaguely Asian appearance was due to possessing some Mongolian ancestry, though his known ancestry contains no indication that this was so.
4.
Warner Oland mastered Swedish, helping him with the translation of Strindberg's works that they jointly published in book form in 1912.
5.
Warner Oland portrayed a variety of Asian characters in several movies before being offered the leading role in the 1929 film The Mysterious Dr Fu Manchu.
6.
Warner Oland was cast as an exotic menace in director Josef von Sternberg's 1932 classic film Shanghai Express opposite Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong.
7.
In Werewolf of London Warner Oland played a werewolf, biting the protagonist, played by Henry Hull.
8.
The enormous worldwide boxoffice success of his Charlie Chan film led to more, with Warner Oland starring in 16 Chan films in total.
9.
Warner Oland took his role seriously, studying the Chinese language and calligraphy.
10.
Warner Oland was forbidden, by court order, from traveling overseas or moving his assets abroad.
11.
In Sweden, Warner Oland contracted bronchial pneumonia, worsened by the apparent onset of emphysema from years of heavy cigarette smoking, and he died in a hospital in Stockholm, on August 6,1938, aged 58.