Sammee Tong (April 21, 1901 – October 27, 1964) was an American film and television
character actor
A character actor is a supporting actor who plays unusual, interesting, or eccentric characters.28 April 2013, The New York Acting SchoolTen Best Character Actors of All Time Retrieved 7 August 2014, "..a breed of actor who has the ability to b ...
. One of Tong's more notable roles was that of Peter Tong on the sitcom ''
Bachelor Father'', which aired on all three national networks from 1957 to 1962.
Early life and career
Born in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, Tong lived in Palo Alto before moving with his family to Honolulu. He graduated from
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
.
Tong attempted to break into acting on the stage during the
Depression, forming an act called the Three Celestials that played in neighborhood theaters and was booked into the
Los Angeles Orpheum
LOS, or Los, or LoS may refer to:
Science and technology
* Length of stay, the duration of a single episode of hospitalisation
* Level of service (transportation), Level of service, a measure used by traffic engineers
* Level of significance, a ...
.
He found he could not secure acting roles because of his ethnicity. He worked in Chinese nightclubs in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
,
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, and San Francisco, where he sang and performed comedy routines. During his nightclub years, he changed the spelling of his name to "Sammee" because he said it "looked better in print."
[ ]
Career
Tong signed with
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production studio that is a member of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is one of the Big Five studios and a subsidiary of the mu ...
,
and in 1934, he made his film debut in a bit part in the comedy film ''
The Captain Hates the Sea
''The Captain Hates the Sea'' is a 1934 comedy film directed by Lewis Milestone and released by Columbia Pictures. The film, which involves a ''Grand Hotel''-style series of intertwining stories involving the passengers on a cruise ship, is notab ...
''. In 1939 he returned to his home town as director of entertainment at the Chinese Village of
San Francisco's World's Fair, and began the first Chinese radio hour on
KSAN.
Throughout the 1940s, he had small, usually uncredited, roles in films. He returned to Hollywood in the early 1950s and took roles on television.
Tong made his television debut in 1953 in an episode of ''
You Are There''. The following year, he appeared in a recurring role as "George, the cook" in a series of television shorts which aired during ''
The Mickey Mouse Club
''The Mickey Mouse Club'' is an American variety television show that aired intermittently from 1955 to 1996 and returned to social media in 2017. Created by Walt Disney and produced by Walt Disney Productions, the program was first televised fo ...
'' entitled ''
The Adventures of Spin and Marty''. In 1955, he reprised his role as George in the feature-length film ''Spin and Marty: The Movie''. He also had a role in the sequel series ''The Further Adventures of Spin and Marty''.
In 1957, he landed a co-starring role in the sitcom ''
Bachelor Father,'' starring
John Forsythe
John Forsythe (January 29, 1918 – April 1, 2010) was an American stage, film/television actor, producer, narrator, drama teacher and philanthropist whose career spanned six decades. He also appeared as a guest on several talk and variety s ...
and
Noreen Corcoran
Noreen Margaret Corcoran (October 20, 1943 – January 15, 2016) was an American film and television actress. She is best known for playing Kelly Gregg in the American sitcom television series '' Bachelor Father''.
Early years
Corcoran was born ...
. In the series, Tong portrayed "Peter Tong,” Bentley Gregg's (Forsythe) live-in houseboy and valet. Although he was playing a servant, Tong enjoyed the role stating, "Houseboys in movies and the theater always bow low, mutter a few sing song words and disappear, but not on this show. I get dialogue and laughs."
In his ''Bachelor Father'' role, Tong was not subservient and at one point walked out because he was not paid enough. He spoke with an accent even though the actor was born in the United States.
After ''Bachelor Fathers cancellation in 1962, Tong was cast as Sammy Ling in the
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
sitcom ''
Mickey
Mickey is a given name and nickname, almost always masculine and often a short form (hypocorism) of Michael (given name), Michael, and occasionally a surname. Notable people and characters with the name include:
People Given name or nickname Men ...
'', starring
Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney (born Joseph Yule Jr.; other pseudonym Mickey Maguire; September 23, 1920 – April 6, 2014) was an American actor. In a career spanning nine decades, he appeared in more than 300 films and was among the last surviving stars of the ...
. Due to low ratings, ABC was considering canceling ''Mickey''. The network was hesitant to cancel the series due to the popularity of Tong's character who had a solid fanbase thanks to Tong's role in ''Bachelor Father''. Tong's death effectively ended any chance for the series' survival and ABC canceled ''Mickey'' in December 1964.
Tong's final screen appearance was as "Cook" in the 1965 film ''
Fluffy'', starring
Tony Randall
Anthony Leonard Randall (born Aryeh Leonard Rosenberg; February 26, 1920 – May 17, 2004) was an American actor. He is best known for portraying the role of Felix Unger in a television adaptation of the 1965 play ''The Odd Couple'' by Neil Sim ...
and
Shirley Jones
Shirley Mae Jones (born March 31, 1934) is an American actress and singer. In her six decades in show business, she has starred as wholesome characters in a number of musical films, such as ''Oklahoma!'' (1955), ''Carousel'' (1956), and ''The M ...
. The film was released after Tong's death.
Death
Tong, who lived alone and never married or had children, was found dead in his
Palms, Los Angeles
Palms (originally "The Palms") is a community in the Westside region of Los Angeles, California, founded in 1886 and the oldest neighborhood annexed to the city, in 1915. The 1886 tract was marketed as an agricultural and vacation community. ...
apartment by his close friend, Ben Wong, on October 27,
1964. Tong had died from an intentional
barbiturate overdose
Barbiturate overdose is poisoning due to excessive doses of barbiturates. Symptoms typically include difficulty thinking, poor coordination, decreased level of consciousness, and a decreased effort to breathe ( respiratory depression). Complica ...
. Police found an empty bottle of sleeping pills by his body and several notes addressed to his landlady, his attorney and police. In the note addressed to police, he gave no reason why he committed suicide only stating, "I have taken my own life. No one is to blame." Tong is buried in
Forest Lawn Memorial Park in
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city in the San Fernando Valley and Verdugo Mountains regions of Los Angeles County, California, Los Angeles County, California, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census the population was 196,543, up from ...
.
In his 1991 autobiography, ''Life is Too Short'', Tong's co-star Mickey Rooney claimed that Tong was a heavy gambler and committed suicide over money issues. According to Rooney,
Tong became despondent and upset after learning that ''Mickey'' faced cancellation because he owed money to the
mafia
"Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...
.
Filmography
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tong, Sammee
1901 births
1964 suicides
20th-century American male actors
Male actors from the San Francisco Bay Area
American male comedians
20th-century American comedians
American people of Chinese descent
American male film actors
American male television actors
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)
Drug-related suicides in California
Barbiturates-related deaths
20th-century American singers
20th-century American male singers