Victor Sen Yung

About Victor Sen Yung

Who is it?: Actor, Soundtrack
Birth Day: October 18, 1915
Birth Place:  San Francisco, California, United States
Resting place: Greenlawn Memorial Park, Colma, California
Other names: Sen Yung Sen Young Victor Sen Young Victor Young
Occupation: Actor
Years active: 1937–1980

Victor Sen Yung

Victor Sen Yung was born on October 18, 1915 in  San Francisco, California, United States, is Actor, Soundtrack. Achieving both film and TV notice during his lengthy career, this diminutive Asian-American character was born Sen Yew Cheung on October 18, 1915 in San Francisco of humble Chinese émigrés. When his mother died during the flu epidemic of 1919, his father placed Victor and his sister in a children's shelter and returned to his homeland. He arrived back in America in the mid-20s having remarried, and the children were released back to his guardianship where they began learning Chinese. To contribute to the family income, young Sen Yung was employed as a houseboy at age 11 and managed to earn his way through college at the University of California at Berkeley with an interest in animal husbandry and receiving a degree in economics.Following a move to Hollywood for some post graduate work at UCLA and USC, Victor gained an entrance into films via extra work, where he was in such roles as a peasant boy in The Good Earth (1937), and a soldier in Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938), among others. During this early period he also worked as a salesman for a chemical firm. In one of Hollywood's more interesting tales of being "discovered", the story goes that Victor was on the Twentieth Century-Fox studio lot at the time trying to pitch one of his company's flame retardant compounds to industry techies when one of them suggested he check out casting. The original Charlie Chan, Warner Oland, had passed away and the series was undergoing a major casting overhaul. In the end, Sidney Toler, who was replacing the late Mr. Oland and received cast approval, chose the fledgling actor following a screen test to play his #2 son, Jimmy Chan, for the film Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938). Victor went on to play the role for seventeen other "Charlie Chan" features. Needless, to say he quit the sales business for good.Victor enjoyed playing Jimmy, the earnest rookie detective who, to his chagrin, was always under the watchful eye of his famous father while trying to help solve murder cases. Outside the role, however, Victor (billed as Sen Yung, Victor Yung and Victor Sen Yung at different times) found the atmosphere oppressive. Usually cast in nothing-special Asian stereotypes, sometimes villainous, in war-era films, parts in such movies as The Letter (1940) starring Bette Davis, Secret Agent of Japan (1942), Little Tokyo, U.S.A. (1942), Moontide (1942), Across the Pacific (1942), Manila Calling (1942), China (1943) and Night Plane from Chungking (1943), did little to advance his stature in Hollywood. His career was interrupted for U.S. Air Force duty as a Captain of Intelligence during WWII. His part in the Chan pictures was taken over by actor Benson Fong.Victor was able to pick up where he left off in Hollywood following the war and returned to his famous role as #2 son. The character's name, however, was eventually changed from "Jimmy" to "Tommy" after a third installment of Charlie Chan pictures were filmed with Roland Winters now the title sleuth after the passing of Mr. Toler in 1947. While Victor's workload was fairly steady, again the roles themselves were meager and hardly inspiring. Most were in "B" level crime mysteries and war pictures and many were accepted with no screen credit at all. Reduced often to playing middle-age servile roles (houseboys, laundrymen, valets, clerks, dock workers and waiters), some of his slightly more prominent roles include those in Woman on the Run (1950), Forbidden (1953), Target Hong Kong (1953), and Trader Tom of the China Seas (1954). His last film appearance was in The Man with Bogart's Face (1980).On TV, Victor appeared in two familiar recurring roles. On the John Forsythe series Bachelor Father (1957), he showed up as "Peter Fong" on the final season of the sitcom. He played the cousin to houseboy Sammee Tong's regular character. Victor is better remembered, however, for the part of Hop Sing, the earnest, volatile cook to the Cartwright clan, provided sporadic comic relief on the long-running Bonanza (1959) western series. He also appeared in the TV pilot and in several episodes of the popular philosophical western series Kung Fu (1972), as well as popping up in dramatic episodes of Hawaiian Eye (1959), The F.B.I. (1965). and Hawaii Five-O (1968). Sitcoms gave a hint of his gentle, humorous side in Here's Lucy (1968), Get Smart (1965) and Mister Ed (1958), but there was not a single role that truly improved his standing in Hollywood.Married and divorced with one child, Victor was looking for work outside of acting by the mid-1970s. At one point he was giving cooking demonstrations in department stores. An accomplished chef who specialized in Cantonese-style cooking, he wrote the 1974 Great Wok Cookbook and dedicated the book to his father, Sen Gam Yung. Victor was working on a second cookbook when he was suddenly found dead in November of 1980 under initially "mysterious circumstances" in his modest San Fernando Valley bungalow. Following an investigation it was determined that Victor was accidentally asphyxiated in his sleep after turning on a faulty kitchen stove for heat. He was survived by his son and two grandchildren.
Victor Sen Yung is a member of Actor

Does Victor Sen Yung Dead or Alive?

As per our current Database, Victor Sen Yung has been died on November 9, 1980(1980-11-09) (aged 65)\nNorth Hollywood, California, U.S..

🎂 Victor Sen Yung - Age, Bio, Faces and Birthday

When Victor Sen Yung die, Victor Sen Yung was 65 years old.

Popular As Victor Sen Yung
Occupation Actor
Age 65 years old
Zodiac Sign Scorpio
Born October 18, 1915 ( San Francisco, California, United States)
Birthday October 18
Town/City  San Francisco, California, United States
Nationality United States

🌙 Zodiac

Victor Sen Yung’s zodiac sign is Scorpio. According to astrologers, Scorpio-born are passionate and assertive people. They are determined and decisive, and will research until they find out the truth. Scorpio is a great leader, always aware of the situation and also features prominently in resourcefulness. Scorpio is a Water sign and lives to experience and express emotions. Although emotions are very important for Scorpio, they manifest them differently than other water signs. In any case, you can be sure that the Scorpio will keep your secrets, whatever they may be.

🌙 Chinese Zodiac Signs

Victor Sen Yung was born in the Year of the Rabbit. Those born under the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Rabbit enjoy being surrounded by family and friends. They’re popular, compassionate, sincere, and they like to avoid conflict and are sometimes seen as pushovers. Rabbits enjoy home and entertaining at home. Compatible with Goat or Pig.

Some Victor Sen Yung images

Biography/Timeline

1919

When his mother died during the flu epidemic of 1919, his father placed Victor and his younger sister, Rosemary, in a children's shelter, and returned to his homeland to seek another wife. His father returned in 1922, with his new wife Lovi Shee, once again forming a household with his two children. During his acting career, Victor was given billing under a variety of names, including Sen Yung, Sen Young, Victor Sen Young, and Victor Young.

1938

Sen Yung made his first significant acting debut 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 10 Charlie Chan films between 1938 and 1942. He played the crucial role of lawyer's clerk Ong Chi Seng alongside Bette Davis in The Letter (1940).

1942

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 Totsuiko in the 1942 Humphrey Bogart film Across the Pacific.

1946

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.

1947

Following Toler's death in 1947, Victor Sen Young continued to work in motion pictures but also 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.

1972

In 1972, Yung was on Pacific Southwest Airlines FLIGHT 710, which was hijacked. The FBI stormed the plane, and in the ensuing gunfire Sen Yung was shot in the small of the back. He and another wounded Passenger survived, but a third Passenger and the two hijackers were killed.

1974

Sen Yung was also an accomplished and talented chef. He frequently appeared on cooking programs, and authored The Great Wok Cookbook in 1974.

1975

In 1975, he appeared on Garry Moore's To Tell The Truth show and related the events of the hijacking. With Yung dressed in a sport coat and flanked by two dissimilar imposters, none of the four panelists was able to choose him as the character actor.

1980

Victor Sen Yung died under unusual circumstances in his North Hollywood home in 1980. The actor, who ran a small mail-order Chinese pottery Business, was creating clayware and curing the items with an oven, and died of natural gas poisoning from a gas leak. His body was found November 10, but he had reportedly been dead at least ten days.

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