Charlie Chan:

Charlie Chan was born Johan Verner Olund on October 3, 1879 in a village 300 miles north of Stockholm, Sweden. Just after his 13th birthday, he emigrated to the United States.

Before going into film, he enjoyed  success on the stage, but it in 1931 Charlie Chan was brought to life by Warner Oland with the Fox Pictures release of Charlie Chan Carries On. He went on to make a total of 17 Chan films for Fox studios.

Oland did not need to use makeup to appear Asian. He attributed his appearance to having a measure of Mongolian blood in his heritage, passed to him through his Russian mother. To prepare for the role of Charlie Chan, he would simply brush the ends of his moustache down and his eyebrows upward. .

On August 6, 1938, Warner Oland contracted a fatal case of bronchial pneumonia while in Stockholm and  passed away. His cremated remains were laid to rest in a cemetery near his home in Southborouogh, Massachusetts.