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Roland Winters

Roland Winters

Birthday: 1904-11-22 | Place of Birth: Boston, Massachusetts, USA

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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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

1973
Miracle on 34th Street

as    Mr. Gimbel

1962
Follow That Dream

as    Judge

1961
Blue Hawaii

as    Fred Gates

1960
Cash McCall

as    Gen. Andrew Danvers

1960
The Iceman Cometh

as    The General (Piet Wetjoen)

1957
Jet Pilot

as    Col. Sokolov

1956
Bigger Than Life

as    Dr. Ruric

1953
So Big

as    Klaas Pool

1952
She's Working Her Way Through College

as    Fred Copeland

1951
Inside Straight

as    Alexander Tomson

1951
Raton Pass

as    Sheriff Perigord

1950
The West Point Story

as    Harry Eberhart

1950
Killer Shark

as    Jeffrey White

1950
Between Midnight and Dawn

as    Leo Cusick

1950
Captain Carey, U.S.A.

as    Manfredo Acuto

1950
Sierra Passage

as    Sam Cooper

1949
Malaya

as    Bruno Gruber

1949
Sky Dragon

as    Charlie Chan

1949
A Dangerous Profession

as    Jerry McKay

1949
1948
Kidnapped

as    Capt. Hoseason

1948
The Feathered Serpent

as    Charlie Chan

1948
Docks of New Orleans

as    Charlie Chan

1948
Shanghai Chest

as    Charlie Chan

1948
The Golden Eye

as    Charlie Chan

1948
Cry of the City

as    Ledbetter

1947
The Chinese Ring

as    Charlie Chan