Sad to hear this news... Actor Kim Chan, who had long list of Hollywood credits playing the ubiquitous Old Asian Man, died last weekend in Brooklyn. He was 93 or 94 (his family isn't sure): Kim Chan, Who Had Roles in TV and 'King of Comedy,' Is Dead.
Mr. Chan, who emigrated to the United States from the province of Canton, China, as a boy, discovered show business while working in his family's restaurant, the House of Chan, which was in the theater district of Manhattan.
He made his film debut in A Face in the Crowd in 1957, playing a radio announcer. He went on to play a theater cashier in The Owl and the Pussycat, a Korean flower vendor in Jumpin' Jack Flash, a dim sum cook in Cadillac Man, the Thai fast-food vendor Mr. Kim in The Fifth Element and Jackie Chan's father in Shanghai Knights.
I'll probably remember him best as the Chinese gangster patriarch Uncle Benny Chan in Lethal Weapon 4... or as the Chinese gangster patriarch Benny Wong in The Corrupter. As you can see, he kind of had the corner on playing Chinese gangster patriarchs named Benny. He will be missed.
