Roland Winters

Known for ActingBorn 1904-11-22Died 1989-10-22Boston, Massachusetts, USA

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.Read more

Movies & web series

Never Steal Anything Small

Doc

The Addams Family

A String of Beads

Play of the Week

Bewitched

Sky Dragon

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour

Citizen Kane

The Carol Burnett Show

Perry Mason

Kraft Television Theatre

Tuna Clipper

Adam's Rib

Sierra Passage

The Iceman Cometh

Bigger Than Life

Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

Miracle on 34th Street

The Lucy Show

Malaya

Startime

The Dain Curse

Lux Video Theatre

Cry of the City

Kidnapped

Everything's Ducky

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff

The Shanghai Chest

To Please a Lady

Once More, My Darling

Cash McCall

Killer Shark

The Defenders

The Return of October

Guilty of Treason

The Underworld Story

Follow the Sun

Broken Arrow

Follow That Dream

Convicted

Loving

Blue Hawaii

The Feathered Serpent

Docks of New Orleans

The West Point Story

Captain Carey, U.S.A.

Between Midnight and Dawn