New Charlie Chan

Northern Advocate, 13 May 1939, Page 3 (Supplement)

New Charlie Chan

The new Charlie Chan is Sidney Toler, distinguished character star ox 1 screen and stage.

His selection to succeed the late Warner Oland was officially announced recently by Darryl Zanuck, production chief or 20th Century-Fox. But not before 34 candidates, all wellknown stage and screen actors, were thoroughly tested ror the part.

The public interest in the selection of the new Charlie Chan may be gauged ,by the report that, in many parts of America voting contests have been sponsored by exhibitors playing for time as their patrons clamoured for further adventures of this detective of the screen. Gland’s Breakdown It will be remembered that in January of this year, Oland suddenly disappeared. from the studio, and was eventually found at his home just outside of Hollywood, suffering from a nervous breakdown., When sufficiently recovered. Oland decided to take a holiday in his native Sweden, at the same time allaying the impression of many that he was a Chinaman.

Gland was just about to return to the studio to commence another of the popular detective series, when he died in Stpckholm on August 7, of alcoholic poisoning and pneumonia. For some time, 20th Century-Fox considered dropping the Chan series altogether and concentrating on the Mr Moto detective pictures which .star Peter Lorre. But so insistent became the demands of exhibitors and the general for a continuation of the series that they decided to do so. For weeks, the studio made screen

tests of every possible candidate. In all. some 34 character actors were given tests. The candidates were required to act whole sequences from net only the first of the new Chan productions, but also from some of the stories in which Oland had already appeared.

Bids for the assignment came from players in Europe, and even from China and Japan, where Oland was known not by his own name, but as “Mr Charlie Chan.”

Sidney Toler, strangely enough, was not one of those originally invited to screen-test for the part. Instead, the studio had signed him for a featured role in the prison-comedy “Up the River.” It was while producer Sol Furtzel was looking at “rushes” of that picture in which Toler appeared that he suddenly decided he would look no further for his Charlie Chan. Had Stage Career Before devoting all his time to appearing in motion pictures, Sidney Toler was a on the stage. No character actor has been in greater demand in the past four years than he. He has appeared in “Give Us This Night,” “The Gorgeous Hussy,” “Our Relations,” “That Certain Woman,” “Double Wedding,” and many others. He is one of the featured members of the cast of “Up the R*iver.”

First Charlie Chan picture in which Toler will appear as the Oriental sleuth will be “Charlie Chan in Honolulu,” which has already commenced production. He will follow it with “Charlie Chan in Chicago.” The Chinese-American actor, Keye Luke, will continue to be Charlie Chan’s No. 1 son.