Leonard Strong | WatchedThis
Leonard Strong
Acting
Biography
Leonard Clarence Strong (born 12 August 1908, Salt Lake City, Utah - d. 23 January 1980, Glendale, California was a prolific American character actor specialising in playing Asian roles. Beginning with Little Tokyo, U.S.A in 1942, Strong played a gamut of roles as Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Thais, etc. in films such as Dragon Seed (1944),Up in Arms (1944), Jack London (1943), Salute to the Marines (1943), Behind the Rising Sun (1943), Night Plane from Chungking (1943), Bombardier (1943),Underground Agent (1942), and Manila Calling (1942). He played the Thai interpreter in both Anna and the King of Siam and its musical remake The King and I. Strong also appeared in the movie Shane (1953) as homesteader Ernie Wright. Strong achieved some pop culture notoriety for his role on television as "The Claw" on Get Smart. He appeared in a season-five episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960) "The Cure" written by horror writer Robert Bloch. Set deep in an Amazon jungle, Strong plays Luiz, a loyal native who speaks broken English and saves his employer, an oil explorer, from the attempted murder of his supposedly mentally ill and unfaithful wife. Something gets lost in the translation when his employer wants Strong to take her to a psychiatrist 200 miles down river, and he takes her instead to a native headshrinker. The denouement comes when Strong returns alone to the shock of his employer. He says, "I do what you tell me. I take her to my people. The best headshrinkers in the world". Then, pulling his employer's wife's now shrunken head out of a bag, he says, "Best job in the world." Another notable television role was his haunting and mostly silent portrayal of the title character in the original Twilight Zone episode, "The Hitch-Hiker", which is often listed as one of the ten best episodes of the series. With his thumb extended, seeking a ride, and asking "Going my way?", Strong is seen in one of the half-dozen, seconds-long scenes used at the start of every one of the 30 DVDs in the CBS DVD five-season collection, "The Twilight Zone, The Definitive Edition."
Filmography Movies
Acting
Shane
A weary gunfighter attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but a smouldering settler and rancher conflict forces him to act.
Backfire
When he's discharged from a military hospital, ex-GI Bob Corey goes on a search for his army buddy Steve Connolly. A reformed crook, Connolly is on the lam from a trumped-up murder rap, and Corey hopes to clear his pal. Tagging along is Army nurse Julie Benson, who has fallen for Corey.
Scared Stiff
A nightclub singer and his partner escape mobsters by fleeing to Cuba with a beautiful heiress, who has inherited a haunted castle on an isolated island. The trio hunt for a hidden treasure and encounter a ghost, a zombie, and a mysterious killer...
Hell's Half Acre
A woman travels to Hawaii to find out if a man in prison there is actually her missing husband.
Cult of the Cobra
While stationed in Asia, six American G.I.'s witness the secret ritual of Lamians (worshipers of women who can change into serpents). When discovered by the cult, the High Lamian Priest vows that "the Cobra Goddess will avenge herself". Once back in the United States, a mysterious woman enters into their lives and accidents begin to happen. The shadow of a cobra is seen just before each death.
Underground Agent
In this espionage caper, a government spy must keep enemy agents from spying upon a defense plant. His work is made easier by his newest invention, a word scrambler which makes it difficult for the enemy agent.
Cargo to Capetown
A sailor and his captain fight over a beautiful girl.
Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing
A widowed doctor of both Chinese and European descent falls in love with a married American correspondent in Hong Kong during China's Communist revolution.
Backlash
In a series of flashbacks, shows that attorney John Morland has given a lift to a hitchhiker who turns out to be a murderer. As a result, Morland himself is implicated in a killing. A pair of detectives discover that Morland has been having business problems and no end of difficulties with his wife Catherine. The trail of clues leads to a surprising revelation.
The Keys of the Kingdom
A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a priest, flourishes in his calling as a priest in a more Christian area of the world, Father Chisholm struggles. He encounters hostility, isolation, disease, poverty and a variety of set backs which humble him, but make him more determined than ever to succeed.
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