Roland Winters
Roland Winters (born Roland Winternitz) was an American actor who played many character parts in films and television but today is best remembered for portraying Charlie Chan in six films in the late 1940s.
Monogram Pictures eventually selected Winters to replace Sidney Toler in the Charlie Chan film series. Winters was 44 when he made the first of his six Chan films, The Chinese Ring in 1947 and ending with Charlie Chan and the Sky Dragon (also known as Sky Dragon) in 1949. His other Chan films were "Docks of New Orleans", "Shanghai Chest", "The Golden Eye" and "The Feathered Serpent". He also had character roles in three other feature films while he worked on the Chan series.
Yunte Huang, in Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History, noted differences in the actors' appearances, especially that Winters' "tall nose simply could not be made to look Chinese." Huang also cited the actor's age, writing, "at the age of forty-four, he also looked too young to resemble a seasoned Chinese sage."
In contrast to Huang, Ken Hanke wrote in his book, Charlie Chan at the Movies: History, Filmography, and Criticism, "Roland Winters has never received his due ... Winters brought with him a badly needed breath of fresh air to the series." He cited "the richness of the approach and the verve with which the series was being tackled" during the Winters era." Similarly, Howard M. Berlin, in his book, Charlie Chan's Words of Wisdom, commented that "Winters brought a much needed breath of fresh air to the flagging film series with his self-mocking, semi-satirical interpretation of Charlie, which is very close to the Charlie Chan in Biggers' novels."
After the series finished, Winters continued to work in film and television until 1982. He was in the movies So Big and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, played Elvis' father in Blue Hawaii and a judge in the Elvis film Follow That Dream. He made appearances as the boss on the early TV series Meet Millie as the boss and the courtroom drama Perry Mason. In one episode of the Bewitched TV series, he played the normally unseen McMann of McMann and Tate. He also portrayed Mr. Gimbel in Miracle on 34th Street in 1973.
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Movies (45)
You Can't Go Home Again
1979 · Judge Bland
Miracle on 34th Street
1973 · Mr. Gimbel
Loving
1970 · Plommie
Doc
1969 · Watkins
Archie
1964 · Mr. Weatherbee
Big Deal in Laredo
1962 · Henry Drummond
Follow That Dream
1962 · Judge
Everything's Ducky
1961 · Capt. Bollinger
Blue Hawaii
1961 · Fred Gates
A String of Beads
1961
Cash McCall
1960 · Gen. Andrew Danvers
The Computer Comes to Marketing
1960 · Ned
Never Steal Anything Small
1959 · Doctor
Jet Pilot
1957 · Col. Sokolov
Top Secret Affair
1957 · Sen. Burdick
Bigger Than Life
1956 · Dr. Ruric
So Big
1953 · Klaas Pool
She's Working Her Way Through College
1952 · Fred Copeland
Follow the Sun
1951 · Dr. Graham
Raton Pass
1951 · Sheriff Perigord
Inside Straight
1951 · Alexander Tomson
Sierra Passage
1950 · Sam Cooper
The West Point Story
1950 · Harry Eberhart
To Please a Lady
1950 · Dwight Barrington
Between Midnight and Dawn
1950 · Leo Cusick
Convicted
1950 · Vernon Bradley, Attorney
The Underworld Story
1950 · Stanley Becker
Killer Shark
1950 · Jeffrey White
Captain Carey, U.S.A.
1950 · Manfredo Acuto
Guilty of Treason
1950 · Soviet Comissar Belov
Malaya
1949 · Bruno Gruber
A Dangerous Profession
1949 · Jerry 'Mac' McKay
Once More, My Darling
1949 · Col. Head
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff
1949 · T. Hanley Brooks
Sky Dragon
1949 · Charlie Chan
Tuna Clipper
1949 · E.J. Ransom
The Feathered Serpent
1948 · Charlie Chan
Kidnapped
1948 · Capt. Hoseason
The Return of October
1948 · Colonel Wood
Cry of the City
1948 · Ledbetter
The Golden Eye
1948 · Charlie Chan
The Shanghai Chest
1948 · Charlie Chan
Docks of New Orleans
1948 · Charlie Chan
The Chinese Ring
1947 · Charlie Chan
Citizen Kane
1941 · Newspaperman at Trenton Town Hall (uncredited)
TV shows (18)
The Dain Curse
1978 · Hubert Collinson
Adam's Rib
1973 · Judge Ransom
The Carol Burnett Show
1967 · Various Characters
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.
1964 · Dan Merrill
The Addams Family
1964 · Ralph J. Hulen
Bewitched
1964 · McMann
The Lucy Show
1962 · Dean Bennett
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
1962 · Ivar West
The Defenders
1961 · Jeff Brubaker
The Iceman Cometh
1960 · The General (Piet Wetjoen)
Play of the Week
1959
Startime
1959 · Fannington
Perry Mason
1957 · Archer Bryant
Broken Arrow
1956 · James Perry
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
1951 · Boss
The Jack Benny Program
1950 · General Sneed #1
Lux Video Theatre
1950 · General Millet, Greenleaf
Kraft Television Theatre
1947