Warner Oland - Biography

Biography

He was born Johan Verner Ölund in the village of Nyby, Bjurholm Municipality, Västerbotten County, Sweden. He claimed that his vaguely Asian appearance was due to possessing some Mongolian ancestry, though his known ancestry contains no indication that this was so. When he was thirteen, his family emigrated to the United States. Educated in Boston, Massachusetts, he spoke English and his native Swedish, and eventually translated some of the plays of August Strindberg. As a young man he pursued a career in theater, at first working on set design while developing his acting skills. Trained as a dramatic actor, in 1906, he was signed to tour the country with the troupe led by actress Alla Nazimova. The following year he met and married the playwright and portrait painter Edith Gardener Shearn. The brilliant woman made an ideal partner for Oland and she mastered the Swedish language, helping him with the translation of Strindberg's works that they jointly had published in book form in 1912.

After several years in theater, including appearances on Broadway as Warner Oland, in 1912 he made his silent film debut in Pilgrim's Progress, a film based on the John Bunyan novel. It would be another three years before he returned to film work with a role in The Romance of Elaine, an adventure film starring the extremely popular Pearl White. As a result of his training as a Shakespearean actor and his easy adaptation to a sinister look, he was much in demand as a villain and in ethnic roles. He made several more films with Pearl White including his first portrayal of an oriental character in her 1919 film, The Lightning Raider. Over the next 15 years he appeared in more than 30 films, including a major role in 1927's The Jazz Singer, one of the first talkies produced.

Oland's facial features allowed him to easily play the part of Asian characters; Keye Luke reported that he needed no makeup except a "little goatee on his chin". Given Hollywood's reluctance to hire Asian actors for substantial roles during that period (with only a few reluctant exceptions, such as Anna May Wong, Sessue Hayakawa, and Philip Ahn), he portrayed a variety of Asian characters in several movies before being offered the leading role in the 1929 film, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu as the first onscreen portrayal of the title character. A box office success, the film made Oland a star and during the next two years, he portrayed the evil Dr. Fu Manchu in three more films. Firmly locked into such roles, he was cast as Charlie Chan in the 1931 international detective mystery film Charlie Chan Carries On and then in director Josef von Sternberg's 1932 classic film Shanghai Express opposite Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong.

Although Oland did act in other films, the enormous worldwide box office success of his Charlie Chan film led to a Charlie Chan industry, with Oland starring in 16 films in total; the series "kept Fox afloat" during the 1930s. The actor—who received $40,000 for each movie—took his role seriously, studying the Chinese language and calligraphy. Oland was also the first actor to play a werewolf in a major Hollywood film, in Werewolf of London (1935) as the werewolf who bites the protagonist, played by Henry Hull.

Despite his wealth and success, Oland suffered from alcoholism that severely affected his health and his thirty-year marriage. In January 1937 he started filming Charlie Chan at the Ringside. However, a week into shooting his erratic behavior led to his walking off the set and shooting was abandoned. After a spell in hospital, he signed a new three picture deal with Fox to continue playing Chan. At the same time he was involved in a bitter divorce from his wife and his finances were restricted. So too was his ability to go overseas as a legal order prevented him from travelling and moving his assets abroad. About this time he was involved in an incident when, after ordering his chauffeur to drive him to Mexico, he was observed during a rest stop to be sitting on the running board of his car and throwing his shoes at onlookers. The divorce settlement (favouring his wife) was announced to the media on April 2, 1938, and the same day he embarked on a ship out of the country. He turned up in southern Europe, before returning to his native Sweden where he stayed with an architect friend.

In Sweden, Oland contracted bronchial pneumonia, worsened by the apparent onset of emphysema from years of heavy cigarette smoking and he died in a hospital in Stockholm. Oland's last film was the unfinished Charlie Chan at the Ringside. Fox reshot Oland's scenes with Peter Lorre and released the finished picture as Mr. Moto's Gamble (1938). Warner Oland and his wife had made their primary residence in an historic farmhouse near the town of Southborough, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Following cremation in Sweden, his ashes were brought back to the United States by his wife for interment in the Southborough Rural Cemetery.