A profile of actor Henry O
I didn't realize how important family history was until after my grandmother died. She was a reporter/actor in pre-Communist China who quite unwillingly moved to Japan right after WW2, but I never asked her anything because most of the time, as a kid, I was too impatient to listen—and I didn't think she wanted to talk about it anyway. Now, nearly a decade after her death, there is one relative left who can tell me about the family's history in Shanghai. A couple months ago, I flew to Seattle to do a lengthy video interview of my great uncle Henry O. Henry is probably the only actor in Hollywood who survived Mao's Cultural Revolution. Before he came to the US, he was an actor for a national troupe in China for thirty years, and was detained by the Communist regime for being from a wealthy family. He moved to the US in his mid-sixties and has since sustained a successful career as an actor in Hollywood. At age 81, he's still picking up roles—he just came back from filming 2012 with John Cusack and Thandie Newton in Vancouver. I wrote a short article about his life for Giant Robot Issue 55.
Regarding Henry (Giant Robot)
the latest
latest episodes
Chinese is good. Better with chilli sauce.
Thanks for writing and sharing this profile. I have a foot in both Chinese and Japanese culture (maybe more like a toe), so for me your family's story is particularly fascinating. Your great uncle sounds like an amazing guy.
This is great. More people need to share stories like these.
Thank you for this! Good reading.
Lisa, I might be misunderstanding the sentence:
"Henry O is probably the only guy in Hollywood who could tell you what it was like to live under Mao’s China."...
did you mean "to live before Mao's China"?
My daughter just finished reading your cousin's (Ji-Li Jiang's, Henry O's daughter's) book Red Scarf Girl. My daughter wrote Ji-Li, who wrote her back. My daughter was thrilled and I could not have been happier. Your whole family is awesome!
Katkins: Sorry for jumping in on your question. The family saga of being terrorized and brutalized by the Red Guard is told from the biographic perspective of Henry O's daughter, Ji-Li Jiang, who was 11-13 at the time. Ms. Katayama's sentence was correct, Henry O survived the Cultural Revolution inside China.
Hubba hubba.
That gal looks just like my wife.