RIP Peter Kwong

 

Peter Kwong Dies: ‘Big Trouble In Little China’ & ‘The Golden Child’ Actor & Longtime Hollywood Union Rep Was 7 

DEADLINE

By Erik Pederson

May 28, 2023

 

Peter Kwong, a martial artist and actor who played one of the Three Storms in Big Trouble in Little China and a henchman in The Golden Child during a prolific acting career and was active in actors union politics and the movie and TV academy leadership, has died. He was 73.

His reps told Deadline that Kwong died overnight Tuesday in his sleep but did not provide other details.

Born on April 9, 1952, Kwong began his screen career in the mid-1970s with guest shots on such TV series as Wonder Woman and Black Sheep Squadron and into the ’80s with Cagney & Lacey, Bret Maverick, The Greatest American Hero, Little House on the Prairie, Dynasty, The A-Team, Miami Vice, 227, St. Elsewhere, Matt Houston and others.

He also had bit parts in features but would land perhaps his most famous role by mid-decade.

Kwong was cast as Rain, one of the Three Storms, in John Carpenter’s 1986 action-adventure tale Big Trouble in Little China, starring Kurt Russell and Kim Cattrall. That same year he appeared on the big screen in Never Too Young to Die, starring John Stamos and Vanity, and in the Eddie Murphy starrer The Golden Child, playing restaurant owner and henchman Tommy Tong.

Training with the East/West Players, Groundlings and other groups, Kwong would continue to work regularly in films and TV shows in the 2020s. Among his silver-screen credits are The Presidio, Gleaming the Cube, I’ll Do Anything, Paper Dragons and Cooties. His numerous TV guest roles also included such popular shows as General Hospital, JAG, My Wife and Kids, The Wayans Brothers, Sisters, Drake & Josh, Lethal Weapon and King of the Hill.

Kwong also was an accomplished martial artist, working in Northern Shaolin kung fu, Chinese kata and with weapons including swords, staffs, spears and nunchaku. Dancing was another specialty — from ballroom and martial arts fusion to disco and breaking. Friends also cited his impressing pop-locking skills.

Along with his nearly 50-year acting career, Kwong was active in Hollywood industry politics. He served on the SAG National Board of Directors for more than a decade and was on the AFTRA National Board of Directors. He also did a four-year stint on the Television Academy Board of Governors and was a member of the Actors Branch Executive Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, among other roles. Kwong ran for the the merged SAG-AFTRA National Board and L.A. Local Board in 2017.

He also was an activist against anti-Asian stereotyping in Hollywood. In 2016, Kwong was among about two dozen signatories on a letter to AMPAS decrying jokes made at the expense of Asians during the Oscars that year.

“I was there at the Academy Awards, and I was shocked because [Academy President] Cheryl Boone-Isaacs went up and talked about diversity and then right after that comes the jokes from Chris Rock and Sacha Baron Cohen,” Kwong told Deadline at the time. “Some people have the attitude, ‘Why can’t you have a sense of humor, and in humor there are no boundaries?’ It’s because it gives people permission to not only continue it but to escalate it as well.”

Information about survivors and a memorial service was incomplete.

KWONG, Peter

Born: 4/9/1952, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Died: 5/27/2025, U.S.A.

 

Peter Kwong’s westerns – actor:

Bret Maverick (TV) – 1981 (Chinese friend)

Little House on the Prairie (TV) – 1983 (employee)

Ghost Rock – 2003 (Song)

RIP James McEachin

 

James McEachin, Star of ‘Tenafly’ and Perry Mason Telefilms, Dies at 94

A war hero who worked with Otis Redding and The Furys, he appeared in four Clint Eastwood movies and portrayed lots of cops during his career.

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

May 27, 2025

 

James McEachin, who wrote and produced songs for Otis Redding before turning to acting to portray cops on his own NBC Mystery Movie series and in 18 of the popular Perry Mason telefilms, has died. He was 94.

McEachin died January 11 and was interred last month at Los Angeles National Cemetery.

The familiar character actor also appeared in four films opposite Clint Eastwood: Coogan’s Bluff (1968), Play Misty for Me (1971) — as the deejay Sweet Al Monte — Every Which Way But Loose (1978) and Sudden Impact (1983).

All in the Family aficionados know him for his turns as the IRS tax examiner who won’t be bribed on the 1972 episode “Archie’s Fraud” and as Solomon Jackson, a Black Jew whom Carroll O’Connor’s character invites into his lodge to check off some diversity boxes, on the 1977 installment “Archie the Liberal.”

A onetime contract player at Universal, McEachin starred as family man Harry Tenafly, a Los Angeles cop turned private detective, in Tenafly, created by Richard Levinson and William Link of Columbo and Mannix fame.

One of the rotating, once-a-month NBC Mystery Movie shows that in 1973-74 included Dan Dailey’s Faraday & Company and The Snoop Sisters, starring Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick, Tenafly was the rare TV series back then to star a Black actor, but it lasted just five episodes.

Later, McEachin played Lt. Ed Brock on the NBC Perry Mason telefilms that starred Raymond Burr (and, after his 1993 death, Hal Holbrook) from 1986-95. And he portrayed another police lieutenant, Frank Daniels, on the first season (1986-87) of NBC’s Matlock, starring Andy Griffith.

James McEachin was born on May 20, 1930, in Rennert, North Carolina, and raised in Hackensack, New Jersey. At 17, he joined the U.S. Army in August 1947.

“When I saw those signs saying ‘Uncle Sam Wants You,’ I swear I thought that bony index finger of his was pointing right at me,” McEachin told the Los Angeles Daily News in November 2021.

McEachin spent more than two years in Japan as part of his first three-year term, then re-enlisted for another three years. As a member of the 2nd Infantry Division, he was wounded in an ambush and left for dead before being rescued. (He was awarded both the Purple Heart and Silver Star in 2005.)

After the service, McEachin worked as a firefighter and a cop in Hackensack, then left for Southern California. Known as Jimmy Mack, he became a songwriter, composer, record producer, talent manager and label owner who worked with the doo-wop group The Furys (“Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart”) and Redding, whom he “brought into the business,” he said in a 2014 interview.

He didn’t think he was the “Jimmy Mack” in the hit 1967 song from Martha and the Vandellas. “I couldn’t have been,” he said, “even though there are people who say to this day, ‘He’s just trying to hide from it.’ What is there to hide from?” (Songwriter Ronnie Mack was said to have been the inspiration for the tune.)

McEachin was walking along Melrose Avenue one day when someone asked him if he wanted to be in a movie. He asked his wife if she thought he should do it. “She said, ‘Well, you might as well. You’ve bombed out on everything else you’ve ever done,'” he recalled with a laugh.

That movie, shot in Bakersfield, California (not in the Deep South, as the poster said), was I Crossed the Color Line (1966), also known as The Black Klansman, produced and directed by Ted V. Mikels.

“I didn’t know you had to memorize dialogue,” he said. “I didn’t know that you didn’t have to just pose and do things naturally. It took me forever to learn that. Even though I didn’t know anything about acting, I knew what bad acting was. I think I had a patent on bad acting.”

However, before the decade was done, McEachin had signed with Universal and appeared in films including Uptight (1968), If He Hollers, Let Him Go! (1968), True Grit (1969) and Hello, Dolly! (1969) and on such TV shows as Dragnet, It Takes a Thief, Adam-12, The Name of the Game, Mannix, The Wild Wild West, Hawaii Five-O and Burr’s Ironside.

McEachin worked in the 1972 films Fuzz, Buck and the Preacher and The Groundstar Conspiracy before starring on Tenafly.

After showing up on Insight, The Rockford Files, Police Story, Emergency!, Columbo, T.J. Hooker, St. Elsewhere, Murder, She Wrote and Hill Street Blues, McEachin signed up for his first Perry Mason movie, 1986’s The Case of the Notorious Nun. He stuck around through 1995’s The Case of the Jealous Jokester.

He said he turned down a role in Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple (1985) because he was offended at how his character was written.

In 2002, McEachin played a liberal Supreme Court justice on First Monday, a short-lived CBS drama from Donald P. Bellisario that starred James Garner and Joe Mantegna.

McEachin was appointed a U.S. Army Reserve Ambassador in 2005 to spend time speaking with soldiers and veterans. A year later, he wrote, produced and starred (with David Huddleston, a castmate on Tenafly) in a 23-minute video called Old Glory that the military community embraced.

His one-man play, Above the Call; Beyond the Duty, opened at the Kennedy Center in Washington in 2008 and played L.A.’s Mark Taper Forum three years later. He portrayed Old Soldier, a character who “pries open tough issues left in the wake of battle, boldly confronting challenges that are facing those serving in our military today while reconciling the spirit of one who has killed in war.”

McEachin also wrote several books, including 1996’s Tell Me a Tale: A Novel of the Old South, 1997’s Farewell to the Mockingbirds, 1999’s The Heroin Factor, 2000’s Say Goodnight to the Boys in Blue and 2021’s Swing Low My Sweet Chariot: The Ballad of Jimmy Mack, a memoir.

His wife, Lois, whom he married in 1960, died in July 2017.

McEACHIN, James

Born: 5/20/1930, Rennert, North Carolina, U.S.A.

Died: 1/11/2025, Encino, California, U.S.A.

 

James McEachin’s westerns – actor:

True Grit – 1969 (bailiff)

The Undefeated – 1969 (Jimmy Collins)

The Wild Wild West (TV) – 1969 (agent #2)

Buck and the Preacher – 1972 (Kingston)

RIP Taina Elg

 

Finland's first Hollywood star Taina Elg dies aged 95

Elg's silver screen success made her a superstar back home, and her visits to Finland in the 1950s became major media events.

Yle

5/26/2025

 

Finland's first (and arguably only) genuine Hollywood movie star, Taina Elg, has died at the age of 95, newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported on Monday.

Elg died at a nursing home in Helsinki on 15 May, HS said.

The future star was born in Helsinki in 1930 and started her Hollywood career in the 1950s. She studied ballet and first went abroad to find work as a dancer, before an injury cut that career short.

She was then invited to audition as an actor in Hollywood, and ended up signing a seven-year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studios when she was just over the age of 20. At the time, MGM was one of the most powerful studios in Hollywood.

As the new technology of television was starting to draw audiences away from the cinema, MGM started to make big musicals, and Elg landed her biggest role in one of them.

Released in 1957 and directed by George Cukor, the musical comedy Les Girls starred Gene Kelly, Mitzi Gaynor and Kay Kendall alongside Elg. The legendary Cole Porter was behind the film's music and lyrics.

The film won an Academy Award for best costume design and was also nominated in two other categories.

Elg won a Golden Globe award for that film, and also won a Golden Globe in the 'Female Foreign Newcomer' category in 1957 for her work in the film Gaby.

In an interview in the early 1990s, Elg told Yle how she became friends with Hollywood stars like Elizabeth Taylor and Lana Turner, saying the latter taught her a lot about acting on the big screen.

Elg's Hollywood success made her a superstar back home, and her visits to Finland became major media events in the 1950s.

After a career in Hollywood that lasted until the end of the 1950s, Elg moved to New York City. There, in the 1960s, she appeared in Broadway musicals and also had a starring role in the western TV series Wagon Train.

Her career in theatre, film and television continued until the 1990s.

ELG, Taina (Taina Elizabeth Elg)

Born: 3/9/1930, Helsinki, Finland

Died: 5/15/2025, Helsinki, Finland

 

Taina Elg’s westerns – actress:

Northwest Passage (TV) – 1959 (Audrey Bonay)

Mission of Danger – 1960 (Audrey Bonay)

Wagon Train (TV) – 1960 (Countess Baranof)

RIP Mara Corday

 

Mara Corday, Star of ‘Tarantula’ and Lots of Westerns, Dies at 95

 She also appeared alongside Clint Eastwood in several films, most famously as a hostage in the "Go Ahead, Make My Day" scene in ‘Sudden Impact.’

The Hollywood Reporter

By Mike Barnes

May 24, 2025

 

Mara Corday, who was menaced by a huge hairy spider in the cult horror film Tarantula and appeared in several films thanks to Clint Eastwood, whom she called a “godsend,” has died. She was 95.

Corday died Feb. 9 at her home in Valencia, California, according to a death certificate filed with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health that was obtained by The Washington Post. The cause was arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

A onetime contract player at Universal-International, Corday also worked in many Westerns, among them Drums Across the River (1954), starring Audie Murphy; King Vidor’s Man Without a Star (1955), starring Kirk Douglas; and The Quiet Gun (1957), starring Forrest Tucker.

She said she was especially proud of her turn as a fun-loving French girl in the Technicolor romantic musical comedy So This Is Paris (1954), directed by Richard Quine and starring Tony Curtis and Gloria DeHaven.

Corday was married to actor Richard Long (Bourbon Street Beat, 77 Sunset Strip, The Big Valley, Nanny and the Professor) from 1957 until his death in 1974 at age 47 from heart problems.

In the Jack Arnold-directed Tarantula (1955), also starring John Agar, Corday portrays the lab assistant Stephanie “Steve” Clayton, who comes to Arizona to work for a scientist (Leo G. Carroll) who has developed an artificial super-nutrient through radioactivity that sparks extraordinary, rapid growth.

“There’s not much of a plot,” Corday said in an interview for Tom Weaver’s 1996 book It Came From Horrorwood. “You’re at the mercy of the ‘fright,’ the ‘horror,’ or whatever. You’re at the mercy of the special effects people, because if they don’t do a good job, then the whole picture goes in the toilet. For instance, The Giant Claw!”

Yes, Corday starred in that monster movie about a giant bird and in another one also released in 1957, The Black Scorpion.

When Eastwood, a fellow Universal contract player who had bit parts in Man Without a Star and (as a jet fighter pilot) in Tarantula, became a big star, he got Corday work in The Gauntlet (1977), Sudden Impact (1983), Pink Cadillac (1989) and her last film, The Rookie (1990).

In the 1983 film, she played the coffee shop waitress who puts way too much sugar in Dirty Harry’s coffee, then gets held at gunpoint by a bad guy.

“My buddy! One of my closest, dearest friends — a godsend!” she said of Eastwood in a 1996 chat for the Western Clippings website. “When my [SAG] insurance ran out, he put me in The Gauntlet. Then my insurance was OK. When it ran out again, he put me in Sudden Impact. I was the hostage — and it’s here that Clint said the famous line, ‘Make my day!’”

Marilyn Joan Watts was born in Santa Monica on Jan. 3, 1930. She worked as an usherette at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles, then was hired by the Earl Carroll Revue in Hollywood when she was 17. She spent about two years there, going from showgirl to acting in sketches with vaudeville legend Pinky Lee.

She took Mara from a nickname given to her by a bongo player and Corday from a perfume and signed with top Hollywood agent Paul Kohner, who got her on TV in The Adventures of Kit Carson and Craig Kennedy, Criminologist and in films including Two Tickets to Broadway (1951) and Problem Girls (1953).

The exotic actress signed with Universal for $175 a week and appeared in Yankee Pasha (1954), Playgirl (1954) — that’s where she first met Long — Francis Joins the WACS (1954), Foxfire (1955) and Arnold’s The Man From Bitter Ridge (1955).

After she left Universal — she and Mamie Van Doren had received the most fan mail of all the contract players at the studio, she said — she starred in Naked Gun (1956), Raw Edge (1956), A Day of Fury (1956), Undersea Girl (1957) and Girls on the Loose (1958) and appeared in Playboy magazine.

She followed with guest shots on several TV Westerns, including The Restless Gun, Tales of Wells Fargo, Wanted: Dead or Alive and Laramie.

After Long’s first wife, actress Suzan Ball, died of cancer in 1955 at age 22, Corday and Long wed in Las Vegas in January 1957. “I thought when we married we would make a great showbiz team, but Richard didn’t want me in the business,” she said.

She noted that she had roles sewn up in the films Night Passage (1957) and The Oregon Trail (1959) and on a 1966 episode of The Big Valley, but Long torpedoed those. She eventually abandoned her acting career and raised their three kids, Carey, Valerie and Greg.

“Richard Long was an enigma,” Corday said in her Western Clippings interview. “I divorced him 10 times the first year of our marriage, getting a lawyer and everything … and 13 times the second year. He’d plead — literally on his hands and knees, ‘Please forgive me, I don’t know why I did it, give me another chance.’ I loved him and I am still in love with him — 22 years after his death.”

CORDAY, Mara (Marilyn Joan Watts)

Born: 1/3/1930, Santa Monica, California, U.S.A.

Died: 2/9/2025, Valencia, California, U.S.A.

 

Mara Corday’s westerns – actress:

The Adventures of Kit Carson (TV) – 1951, 1952, 1953 (Janet Cronin, Juanita, Lola La Vada,

     Mrs. Drake)

Toughest Man in Arizona – 1952

Dawn at Socorro – 1954 (Letty Diamond)

Drums Across the River – 1954 (Sue)

The Man from Bitter Ridge – 1955 (Holly Kenton)

Man Without a Star – 1955 (Moccasin Mary)

A Day of Fury – 1956 (Sharman Fulton)

Naked Gun – 1956 (Louisa Jackson)

Raw Edge – 1956 (Paca)

The Quiet Gun – 1957 (Irene)

The Man from Blackhawk (TV) – 1959 (Annabel)

The Restless Gun (TV) – 1959 (Della)

Tales of Wells Fargo (TV) – 1950 (Ruby)

Laramie (TV) – 1960 (Rose)

Wanted: Dead or Alive (TV) – 1960 (Lucinda Lorenz)

RIP Éric Legrand

 

Éric Legrand, 1 of Vegeta's Most Beloved Voice Actors, Has Died

Screen Rant

By Casandra Ronning

May 25, 2025

 

Éric Legrand, the French voice actor best known for his roles as the voices of Vegeta and Yamcha in Dragon Ball Z, has passed away at the age of 66. The news was confirmed in a Facebook post by Patrick Borg, the longtime French voice actor for Goku, who shared that Legrand had been admitted to a palliative care unit on May 19, 2025.

While the exact date and cause of death haven’t been disclosed to the public, the announcement has sparked a wave of tributes from fans and fellow voice actors. Legrand began his career in the 1980s and quickly became a pillar of French-language dubbing. His notable performances helped shape generations of fans, and his voice remains inseparable from early broadcasts of Dragon Ball Z and other anime like Saint Seiya.

Patrick Borg Announces Éric Legrand’s Passing on Facebook

In a Heartfelt Post on Facebook, Patrick Borg Offers His Final Farewell to a Longtime Friend

Legrand’s passing was first publicly shared by his longtime friend and colleague, Patrick Borg. The two shared over four decades of friendship and professional collaboration as the voices of Vegeta and Goku, which strengthened their bond. On Facebook, Borg honored Legrand’s memory with a heartfelt farewell that shows the depth of their friendship.

Borg’s tribute offered a deeper glimpse into their friendship, which spanned the golden years of anime. His message not only honored Legrand’s legacy but also offered a look into the man behind the microphone. Legrand will be remembered for his resilience and sense of humor and is beloved by his colleagues and fans alike.

Éric Legrand Will Always Be Remembered Through His Iconic Roles

Legrand Was Beloved by All Who Were Touched by Him and His Performances

Éric Legrand’s influence on the voice acting world went beyond his roles in Dragon Ball Z. In France, he played a major role in anime localization and was also recognized for his lead role in Saint Seiya as the titular character. He brought beloved characters to life through Vegeta and Yamcha, and also voiced a variety of other characters throughout Dragon Ball. These roles include Mr. Popo, the World Martial Arts Tournament Announcer, and Bojack in Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound.

Legrand’s talents also crossed into Western animation as he lent his voice to the French dubs of series like Archer and Captain Planet. Thanks to the warmth and admiration he inspired in fans and colleagues, his legacy extends far beyond the recording booth. With powerful deliveries and his respect for every role he took on, Legrand left a lasting impact that will never be forgotten by those who knew him. As the Dragon Ball and anime community reflect on his contributions, it’s clear that his work will continue to bring comfort to audiences for years to come.

LEGRAND, Éric

Born: 8/5/1952, Paris, Île-de-France, France

Died: 5/22/2025, Paris, Île-de-France, France

 

Éric Legrand’s western – TV – voice actor:

Winchester ’73 – 1950 [French voice of Jimmy Stewart]

Pale Rider – 1985 [French voice of Chris Penn]

Jesse Lee's Revenge – 1993 [French voice of Billy Zane]

Tombstone – 1993 [French voice of Billy Zane]

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (TV) – 1994-1998 [French voice of Jason Leland Adams]

 Shanghai Kid – 2000 [French voice of Owen Wilson]