Roland Winters
Acting

Roland Winters

Born 22 November 1904 · Boston, Massachusetts, USA · Died 22 October 1989

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."

Known for

Bewitched
The Addams Family
Bigger Than Life
Blue Hawaii
Cry of the City
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff
Jet Pilot
Follow That Dream
Convicted
Between Midnight and Dawn
The Underworld Story
The Chinese Ring
You Can't Go Home Again
Miracle on 34th Street
Loving
Doc
Archie
Follow That Dream
Blue Hawaii
Everything's Ducky
A String of Beads
Cash McCall
Never Steal Anything Small
Jet Pilot
Top Secret Affair
Bigger Than Life
So Big
She's Working Her Way Through College
Raton Pass
Follow the Sun
Inside Straight
The Underworld Story
Convicted
Between Midnight and Dawn
The West Point Story
Killer Shark
To Please a Lady
Guilty of Treason
Sierra Passage
Captain Carey, U.S.A.
Malaya
A Dangerous Profession
Sky Dragon
Once More, My Darling
Tuna Clipper
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff
Cry of the City
Docks of New Orleans
The Shanghai Chest
The Feathered Serpent
The Golden Eye
The Return of October
Kidnapped
The Chinese Ring
Roland Winters · Midrow