Roland Winters
(1904 - 1989)
Born Roland Winternitz
November 22, 1904
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died October 22, 1989 (aged 84)
Englewood, New Jersey U.S.
Occupation Actor
Years active 1924–1982
Spouse Ada Howe
Roland Winters (born Roland Winternitz; November 22, 1904 – October 22, 1989)[1] 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.
Early years
Born Roland Winternitz in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 22, 1904, Winters was the son of Felix Winternitz, a violinist and composer who was teaching at New England Conservatory of Music.
Charlie Chan films
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" (1948), "Shanghai Chest" (1948), "The Golden Eye" (1948) and "The Feathered Serpent" (1948). He also had character roles in three other feature films while he worked on the Chan series.
Winters is less well known in the Charlie Chan role than his two predecessors. He made far fewer Chan films than they did, and he came along at a time when the series was well past its higher-budget days. Viewers are divided about his performance in the role. Some consider him an ineffective successor to Warner Oland and Sidney Toler, but others defend him for his unique approach to the character.
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."
Later films and television:
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 in the early TV series "Meet Millie" as the boss. 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.
Death
Winters died as the result of a stroke at the Actor's Fund Nursing Home in Englewood, New Jersey on October 22, 1989.
Selected filmography
Citizen Kane (1941) – Newspaperman at Trenton Town Hall (uncredited)
13 Rue Madeleine (1946) – Van Duyval (uncredited)
The Chinese Ring (1947) – Charlie Chan
Docks of New Orleans (1948) – Charlie Chan
Shanghai Chest (1948) – Charlie Chan
The Golden Eye (1948) – Charlie Chan
Cry of the City (1948) – Ledbetter
The Return of October (1948) – Colonel Wood
Kidnapped (1948) – Capt. Hoseason
The Feathered Serpent (1948) – Charlie Chan
Tuna Clipper (1949) – E.J. Ransom
Sky Dragon (1949) – Charlie Chan
Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949) – T. Hanley Brooks
Once More, My Darling (1949) – Colonel Head
A Dangerous Profession (1949) – Jerry McKay
Malaya (1949) – Bruno Gruber
Guilty of Treason (1950) – Soviet Comissar Belov
Captain Carey, U.S.A. (1950) – Manfredo Acuto
Killer Shark (1950) – Jeffrey White
Underworld Story (1950) – Stanley Becker
Convicted (1950) – Vernon Bradley, Attorney
Between Midnight and Dawn (1950) – Leo Cusick
To Please a Lady (1950) – Dwight Barrington
The West Point Story (1950) – Harry Eberhart
Sierra Passage (1950) – Sam Cooper
Inside Straight (1951) – Alexander Tomson
Raton Pass (1951) – Sheriff Perigord
Follow the Sun (1951) – Dr. Graham
She's Working Her Way Through College (1952) – Fred Copeland
A Lion Is in the Streets (1953) – Prosecutor (uncredited)
So Big (1953) – Klaas Pool
Bigger Than Life (1956) – Dr. Ruric
Top Secret Affair (1957) – Sen. Burdick
Jet Pilot (1957) – Col. Sokolov
Never Steal Anything Small (1959) – Doctor
Everything's Ducky (1961) – Capt. Lewis Bollinger
Blue Hawaii (1961) – Fred Gates
Follow That Dream (1962) – Judge
Loving (1970) – Plommie
Miracle on 34th Street (1973) – Mr. Gimbel
The Dain Curse (1978) – Hubert Collinson
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In 1904, in the year that Roland Winters was born, the first underground line of the New York City subway system opened. London's underground system was opened in 1863 and Boston opened one in 1897, but New York quickly became the largest system in the U.S. More than 100,000 people paid 5 cents to ride under Manhattan that first day.
In 1937, he was 33 years old when on May 6th, the German zeppelin the Hindenburg caught fire and blew up. The Hindenburg was a passenger ship traveling to Frankfurt Germany. It tried to dock in New Jersey, one of the stops, and something went wrong - it blew up. Thirty-six people were killed out of the 97 on board - 13 passengers, 22 crewmen, and one ground worker. The reasons for the explosion are still disputed.
In 1954, when he was 50 years old, from April 22 through June 17th, the Army v. McCarthy hearings were held. The U.S. Army accused Roy Cohn (chief counsel to Senator McCarthy and later trusted mentor of Donald Trump) of blackmail. McCarthy and Cohn accused the U.S. Army of harboring communists. The Army allegations were found to be true. The U.S. Senate later censured McCarthy.
In 1963, at the age of 59 years old, Roland was alive when the British Secretary of War, 46 year old John Profumo ,was forced to resign when he lied about an affair with 19 year old Christine Keeler. Keeler was also involved with the Soviet naval attaché and charges of espionage were feared. No proof of spying was ever found.
In 1989, in the year of Roland Winters's passing, on March 24th, the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker, struck a reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound and oil began spilling out of the hold. The oil would eventually contaminate more than a thousand miles of coastline. It is estimated that over 10.8 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Sound - killing 100,000 to 250,000 seabirds, over 2,800 sea otters, about 12 river otters, 300 harbor seals, 247 bald eagles, and 22 orcas - as well as an unknown number of salmon and herring.
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