Roland Winters

DOB: 1904-11-22

DOD: 1989-10-22

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.

Starred In

1948
Movie

Cry of the City

1956
Movie

Bigger Than Life

1950
Movie

Convicted

1949
Movie

Malaya

1961
Movie

Blue Hawaii

1953
Movie

So Big

1947
Movie

The Chinese Ring

1957
Movie

Jet Pilot

1948
Movie

The Shanghai Chest

1949
Movie

Sky Dragon

1948
Movie

The Golden Eye

1950
Movie

Killer Shark

1957
Movie

Top Secret Affair

1950
Movie

To Please a Lady

1951
Movie

Raton Pass

1949
Movie

Tuna Clipper

1951
Movie

Follow the Sun

1961
Movie

Everything's Ducky

1961
Movie

A String of Beads

1951
Movie

Inside Straight

1948
Movie

Kidnapped

1950
Movie

Guilty of Treason

1970
Movie

Loving

1960
Movie

Cash McCall

1941
Movie

Citizen Kane

1950
Movie

Sierra Passage

1962
Movie

Follow That Dream

1962
Movie

Big Deal in Laredo

1960
Movie

The Iceman Cometh

1969
Movie

Doc

1964
Tv

Bewitched

1961
Tv

The Defenders

1962
Tv

The Lucy Show

1973
Tv

Adam's Rib

1957
Tv

Perry Mason

1956
Tv

Broken Arrow