Comments on: The lady in the tutti frutti hat

Question: The lady in the tutti frutti hat

gauchodaspampas — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:01:03 -0800

Who are some iconic actors portraying races/ethnicities different from their actual heritage?

I'm trying to think of a list of actors and actresses who are famous for portraying racial/ethnic stereotypes when they in fact they are questionably or are not even that race or ethnicity at all. The only two prominent examples I can think of right now are Carmen Miranda and Iron Eyes Cody. Carmen Miranda, or "the lady with fruit hat" always played characters from various latin countries, often Spanish speaking ones, even though she was actually raised in Brazil, and on top of that was born in Portugal. Iron Eyes Cody played hundreds of native american roles, most famously, "they crying indian" in the 70's environmental commercial. He was actually of Italian heritage. He did live his adult life as a native american, and was very much accepted as one, however. Can anyone think of any similar actors? I know there are many examples like this, for instance latinos playing roles as middle easterns and vice versa, but I'm mostly interested in the prominent, iconic figures.

By: limeonaire

limeonaire — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:02:32 -0800

Catherine Zeta-Jones is Welsh, but has played numerous Latina roles.

By: Joleta

Joleta — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:07:55 -0800

Sidney Toler played Charlie Chan in the '30s and '40s. IMDB says he was "primarily of Scottish ancestry."

By: MeetMegan

MeetMegan — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:08:01 -0800

How refined do you want to be on this? There are plenty of Canadian, British, Irish, and Australian actors who portray Americans.

By: MonkeySaltedNuts

MonkeySaltedNuts — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:10:16 -0800

Sidney Toler, Warner Oland and Roland Winters playing Charlie Chan.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:11:26 -0800

Michael Jackson pretends at various times to be black and/or white.

By: Meemer

Meemer — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:12:44 -0800

Lou Diamond Phillips can play anyone anywhere. Ok I exaggerate but lets be honest, his ethnicity can be quite ambiguous at times.

By: hermitosis

hermitosis — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:13:51 -0800

Anthony Hopkins in "The Human Stain". Ben Kingsley in "Gandhi". Both performances grabbed attention-- yet these actors didn't make a career out of race-drag or anything.

By: desuetude

desuetude — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:14:36 -0800

Cheech and Chong. Cheech Marin is of Iranian descent, Tommy Chong is of Chinese and Scots-Irish descent.

By: Gungho

Gungho — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:14:56 -0800

John Wayne played Gengis Kahn in The Conquerer
Sean Connery AKA James Bond played a Japanese fisherman in You only Live Twice
David Carradine played Chinese in Kung Fu, a role created by /for Bruce Lee

By: Schlimmbesserung

Schlimmbesserung — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:16:54 -0800

Yul Brynner (a Russian) plays the King of Siam (Thailand) in "The King and I."

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:23:00 -0800

Fake Scots I have known:

- Christopher Lambert—NY-born, Geneva raised, famous for the Highlander films.
- Texas boy Dennis Quaid was Scottish for approximately half of Dragonheart, non-consecutively. (Co-starring with Connery—insult to injury.)
- And, of course, that Australian crackpot Mel in Braveheart

And, bonus round: John Rhys-Davies is Welsh, raised in England and Africa, and often plays swarthy Arab types and such when he's not busy playing as a Tolkeinian ur-Scottish Dwarf.

By: furtive

furtive — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:24:14 -0800

Jason Scott Lee is of Hawaiian/Chinese descent and best remembered for his role as Bruce Lee in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, but he's played everything from an arab to Inuit to Easter Island Chilean.

By: rdr

rdr — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:25:39 -0800

Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek

By: Emanuel

Emanuel — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:27:38 -0800

Al Pacino in Scarface portrays a Cuban.

By: kittyprecious

kittyprecious — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:29:38 -0800

Ben Kingsley in "Gandhi".

It's only on one side, but Ben Kingsley is Indian, born Krishna Bhanji. One could argue that playing Iranian in House of Sand and Fog qualifies, but that's hardly iconic.

By: brianvan

brianvan — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:30:46 -0800

Al Pacino in anything where he's not Italian. That rules out the Godfather, Donnie Brasco. Also Glengarry Glen Ross, where his name was "Richard Roma"...

(The flipside of this list, and what you're looking for, includes Scarface, Carlito's Way, The Merchant of Venice, Angels in America, The Insider, People I know, and any movie where he was playing someone WASPy. Heat could be included if you wanted to really nitpick.)

Robert DeNiro also does a pretty good job of playing non-Italian guys when given the chance. In "Casino" he was supposed to be Jewish. (Although to some people that's not a huge ethnic leap)

If you're looking for "white man who plays black person" you'll NEVER find it. It would cause an uproar. If you're looking for the flipside... well, I've never seen it. I've seen a lot of Hispanics play Caucasians and vice versa. Asians and whites, not so much swappage there. Plenty of big-name Asian actors to take on Asian roles. Although maybe you can consider Liam Neeson from "Batman Begins" playing Ras ah Ghul...

By: mr_roboto

mr_roboto — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:31:25 -0800

hermitosis writes "Ben Kingsley in 'Gandhi'."

Interestingly, Kingsley's name at birth was Krishna Bhanji: his father was Gujarati. So this one probably doesn't count, unless you want to rule out actors of mixed heritage entirely.

By: SisterHavana

SisterHavana — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:33:44 -0800

Don't forget Charlton Heston as Moses.

By: forrest

forrest — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:41:07 -0800

Besides Zorba, Anthony Quinn (born in Mexico) played Attila the Hun, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Gaugin, an Arab in Lawrence of Arabia, Barabbas, a Pole in Shoes of the Fisherman, Antonio Stradivari and various roles as American Indians.

Jonathan Pryce (Welsh) played a Vietnamese pimp in Miss Saigon.

Peter Sellers played Sidney Wang in Murder by Death and Fu Manchu in his last movie.

Paul Muni and Luise Rainer played Chinese farmers in The Good Earth.

Sam Jaffe played Gunga Din.

By: Asparagirl

Asparagirl — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:42:12 -0800

Charlton Heston is well known for playing two Jewish men: Judah Ben-Hur and Moses.

Lots of Brits keep getting typecast as Germans, Nazi's, members of the ("Star Wars") Empire, and/or aliens in WWII and/or Sci-Fi films and television shows. Sometimes they're both aliens and Nazi's at the same time; see also "Star Trek".

A number of East Asian actors keep getting cast as inhabitants of other East Asian countries, usually when they're in films produced or directed by non-Asians who bizarrely don't notice the phenotypic differences, or who don't think their audience will, e.g. "Memoirs of a Geisha". Quentin Tarantino tried to make a joke of this practice when he cast Chinese-American Lucy Liu as a Japanese Yakuza boss in "Kill Bill", and then had to invent a convoluted backstory for her.

But actress Juanita Hall is probably the best known consistently-crossing-race player. She's a light-skinned African-American woman who played Bloody Mary in "South Pacific" (who is supposed to be Polynesian Tonkinese, which despite its southern location later became North Vietnamese) and Madame Liang in "Flower Drum Song" (who is supposed to be a Chinese immigrant to the US), in both the Broadway and movie versions.

Also in a Broadway vein, Filipina actress/singer Lea Salonga is best known for playing a French waif, a South Vietnamese waif, a Chinese immigrant to the US, and an unidentified-Muslim-country-but-probably-Iraqi princess, in (respectively) "Les Miserables", "Miss Saigon", "Flower Drum Song", and the Disney film of "Aladdin".

By: scody

scody — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:47:59 -0800

Mickey Rooney's stereotyporiffic turn as Audrey Hepburn's Japanese in Breakfast at Tiffany's is probably more notorious than iconic. Similarly, there's always Marlon Brando pretending to be Japanese as well in Teahouse of the August Moon.

(I believe there's a whole list of such performances in the first edition of The Golden Turkey Awards, which I thought I had a copy of but can't seem to locate at the moment.)

By: scody

scody — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:48:48 -0800

gah! "...as Audrey Hepburn's Japanese neighbor."

By: Scoo

Scoo — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:49:41 -0800

Don't forget Charlton Heston as Ramon Miguel 'Mike' Vargas.

By: clarahamster

clarahamster — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:49:49 -0800

Mickey Rooney played Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's

By: clarahamster

clarahamster — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:50:29 -0800

arg! beaten to it!

By: gauchodaspampas

gauchodaspampas — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:50:59 -0800

MeetMegan, I will turn away no answers. These are all really interesting so far.

Asparagirl, good point, Brits do get cast a lot as villains in american movies.

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:52:32 -0800

Temuera Morrison, best known to you as Boba Fett, is a Maori who like most Polynesian actors (eg Cliff Curtis) gets "generic ethnic" roles in Hollywood movies.

By: null terminated

null terminated — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:56:08 -0800

James Caan is german/jewish and played an Italian in the Godfather.

By: malp

malp — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:03:48 -0800

If you're looking for "white man who plays black person" you'll NEVER find it.

Steve Martin played a black man, sorta.

By: sandra_s

sandra_s — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:05:03 -0800

Not sure if this fits, but Arnold Swarzenegger is Austrian yet always plays the true-blue American Hero. Thats not just a one-off role, but a majority of his career.

Sean Connery is Scottich and the only thing I can think of in which he actually plays a Scotsman is The Longest Day. I think he usually plays British (007) or Irish (Untouchables) characters.

By: aristan

aristan — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:08:31 -0800

see also "Star Trek".

Star Trek: The Next Generation featured a Brit playing a Frenchmen who sounded and acted exactly like a Brit.

Of course, they also featured another Brit, of Greek ancenstry, who attempted to play a vaguely slavic empath. Keep in mind, she was originally going to play an entirely different character who was to be a Latina.

By: goshling

goshling — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:13:05 -0800

I'm not going into all the variations of Australian/New Zealand/British/American actors/roles, but I will mention that according to a Frenchman I know, Aussie actress Miranda Otto convincingly played a French woman in Human Nature.

Naveen Andrews is of Indian descent and plays Sahid the Iraqi in Lost.

By: aristan

aristan — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:13:54 -0800

Also... Mel Gibson is not a native Australian. He was born in the US and lived here until he was 12. His mother was a native Australian.

By: jrossi4r

jrossi4r — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:15:52 -0800

Rita Moreno has played just about everything.

By: iconjack

iconjack — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:21:02 -0800

Tony Shalhoub (Lebanese) has played an Italian several times. Examples are Wings and Big Night.

By: Sara Anne

Sara Anne — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:25:15 -0800

Charlton Heston as a truly unconvincing Mexicano in Touch of Evil
Rita Hayworth's real name was Margarita Carmen Cansino.

By: leecifer

leecifer — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:38:21 -0800

How 'bout Brando as Zapata in Viva Zapata?

By: croutonsupafreak

croutonsupafreak — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:40:46 -0800

Jay Silverheels played Tonto on the TV show the "Lone Ranger," but he was white, not American Indian.

By: rob511

rob511 — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:47:37 -0800

A couple of nontraditional casting examples, subcategory "Mysterious ~~East~~ West," come to mind:

Was there ever a Connecticut Yankee nutmeggier and WASPier than Kate Hepburn? How are we to explain Dragon Seed then?

Then there was Linda Hunt in "The Year of Living Dangerously," whose portrayal crossed all sorts of boundaries.

By: MonkeySaltedNuts

MonkeySaltedNuts — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:48:10 -0800

Danny Thomas (Lebanese Maronite Christian) played Jews in his two major film roles.

By: Phlogiston

Phlogiston — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:48:18 -0800

Warner Oland, a Swede, was typecast as an East Asian after playing a Japanese villain in the 1917 Hearst-financed propaganda serial, Patria!. In addition to his aforementioned run as Charlie Chan, he played Fu Manchu and a good many other, less iconic roles.

Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee has also played Fu Manchu.

By: zadcat

zadcat — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:56:37 -0800

If you're looking for "white man who plays black person" you'll NEVER find it.

Laurence Olivier as Othello which he played with maximum blackface kitsch.

A white actor named Richard Barthelmess played a Chinese man opposite Lillian Gish in Broken Blossoms, which the imdb says is actually titled "Broken Blossoms or The Yellow Man and the Girl". Iconic line: "Chinky, why are you so good to me?"

But I guess you're looking for somebody who always posed as someone of a different cultural group?

By: justonegirl

justonegirl — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 21:07:37 -0800

Alfred Molina, of Spanish/Italian descent, has played all kinds of ethnicities, such as Iranian in Not Without My Daughter.

By: invisible ink

invisible ink — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 21:17:31 -0800

Audrey Hepburn (British/Dutch ancestry) plays a Native American in The Unforgiven.

By: SPrintF

SPrintF — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 21:24:08 -0800

Casting my net a little further, I suggest Jaye Davidson has played a role "different from his actual heritage."

By: oflinkey

oflinkey — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 21:25:57 -0800

Omar Sharif is all over the map.

By: jamaro

jamaro — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 21:33:15 -0800

Dorothy Lamour (white) made her early career playing non-white roles such as Princess Lala (Southeast Asian) in Road to Bali, Carmelita Castillo (Spanish) in The Last Train from Madrid, Princess Shalmar (generic "arab") in Road to Morocco. She did many more, for a while there she was who casting directors rang up when they wanted someone 'exotic'.

Lamour was known as The Sarong Girl (my 84 y.o. dad is HUGE fan of hers).

By: acoutu

acoutu — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 21:53:07 -0800

Grey Owl, who was faking his ethnicity in real life, too.

By: mikeh

mikeh — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 21:59:07 -0800

John Turturro has played characters of many ethnicities, from hispanic to jewish.

By: nakedcodemonkey

nakedcodemonkey — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:06:24 -0800

Natalie Wood, a Russian, playing Puerto Rican in West Side Story.

By: Quinbus Flestrin

Quinbus Flestrin — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:14:10 -0800

How about Alec Guiness, who played a whole range of nationalities/races/genders not his own: Russian (Doctor Zhivago), Scottish (Tunes of Glory), Indian (A Passage to India), and Jewish (Oliver Twist), amongst others (I'm not counting Jedi); even a drag performance in Kind Hearts and Coronets.

By: brujita

brujita — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:14:33 -0800

Peter Lorre was Mr. Moto.
Susan Kohner played a mulatto in the remake of Imitation of Life, as did Jeanne Crain, who won the Oscar for Pinky

By: nakedcodemonkey

nakedcodemonkey — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:20:30 -0800

Depending on whether you're looking for the actor or their role to be the icon, Myrna Loy might count. At the beginning of her career, she was typecast for years as the slutty "exotic" (read:Chinese/Indian/Egyptian/whatever) chick.

According to her autobiography, she was really a spitfire Scottish/Welsh tomboy.

By: ruby.aftermath

ruby.aftermath — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:52:53 -0800

Antonio Banderas was supposed to be an Arab in The 13th Warrior.

I'm embarrassed to remember that, but I was confused enough to remember it at least 6 years later.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 23:03:49 -0800

Andy Garcia is Cuban-American,, and played Italians in Untouchables, Godfather III, and Hoodlum.

Sean Connery...usually plays British (007)

James Bond is Scottish (father) and Swiss (mother).

By: SoftRain

SoftRain — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 00:54:05 -0800

Madonna (Italian-American) played Eva Peron in Evita.

The aforementioned Charlton Heston in Touch of Evil is a classic though.

Also, croutonsupafreak, according to IMDb Jay Silverheels of Tonto fame was a born on a Mohawk reservation. He was a First Nations Canadian playing a First Nations American, but I don't think that's really an amazing stretch.

By: seancake

seancake — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 01:07:04 -0800

I can't believe no one's mentioned John Wayne playing Genghis Khan.

By: seancake

seancake — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 01:17:00 -0800

Ugh, need to get with the [more inside], there, sorry. I don't think he was famous for that role, though there is some interesting backstory on it regarding Nevada missile tests and how most if not all the people working on it got cancer.

By: macguffin

macguffin — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 03:24:40 -0800

Quinbus Flestrin beat me to mentioning Alec Guinness. Sir Alec was also the prince in Lawrence of Arabia.

You mentioned "famous for portraying racial/ethnic stereotypes" -- well, here's famous (infamous?) in one way: Guinness' portrayal as Fagin in David Lean's Oliver Twist elicited accusations of anti-Semitism back when the movie was first released; the film was banned in Israel and apparently a riot broke out in Berlin when protesters tried to prevent the film from being shown. The controversy delayed the film's US release, and the movie -- minus 12 minutes of censored footage -- finally opened in the US in 1951, three years after its UK premiere.

Lon Chaney's nickname was "The Man of a Thousand Faces." He (Colorado-born with English/Irish parents) played a variety of people of different backgrounds...French, Scandinavian, Russian, Chinese, German, and many more, no doubt. He played Erik in The Phantom of the Opera and Fagin in an early version of Oliver Twist. His son eventually followed in his footsteps, but was more known for being in horror movies.

I'm not sure if you're just looking for answers from within the realm of movies and TV, but Ben Wright (born and raised in England, English/American parents) played scads of characters of different ethnicities and did different accents, but mainly German and French. He played a Chinese servant called "Hey Boy" on the radio series Have Gun, Will Travel in the late 1950s; the show was set in San Francisco during the Old West (for the television series, Hey Boy was played by a Chinese-American actor). He did a lot of work in radio, TV and film -- his most well-known roles by the public now are probably the baddie Herr Zeller in The Sound of Music and as Grimsby (voice over) in The Little Mermaid.

Speaking of accents, that reminds me of Meryl Streep (born and raised in New Jersey, and according to Wikipedia, of Irish/German/English/Dutch descent). Among others, she was Australian in A Cry in the Dark, Polish in Sophie's Choice, Danish in Out of Africa, and she was Chilean (accent aside) in The House of Spirits.

Also, David Suchet (born and raised in England, Russian/French roots) is Hercule Poirot (Belgian), but his other roles include Louis B. Mayer (Russian/Canadian-American) in RKO 281, Leopold Bloom (Hungarian/Irish) in James Joyce's "Ulysses" (for some reason it's not listed on IMDb) and Sigmund Freud (Austrian) in the Freud miniseries.

By: jaimystery

jaimystery — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 03:52:18 -0800

Most of the main cast in the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton movie, Cleopatra.

Just about every actor who has portrayed Jesus in US productions. James Caviezel is an Italian-American, Willem Dafoe is an Italian/Irish/German/Puerto Rican American, Max Von Sydow is Swedish (and also played Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon).

By: kimdog

kimdog — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:20:50 -0800

Sam Jaffe, already mentioned for Gunga Din, also played the High Lama of Shangrila in the film Lost Horizon.

By: teleskiving

teleskiving — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 05:44:53 -0800

Bronson Pinchot (Perfect Strangers) belongs on this list. Fisher Stevens played an Indian in the Short Circuit movies.

By: teleskiving

teleskiving — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 05:58:47 -0800

John Mahoney (Frasier) is actually English and grew up in the UK.

By: JJ86

JJ86 — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 06:07:58 -0800

Pat Morita played many generic Asians when he is of obvious Japanese descent.

By: orange swan

orange swan — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 06:49:49 -0800

Bruno Gerussi, an Italian Canadian, played the Greek Canadian Nick Adonidas on a long-running Canadian show, The Beachcombers.

By: La Cieca

La Cieca — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 06:52:02 -0800

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned Al Jolson .

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 06:59:53 -0800

I can't believe no one's mentioned John Wayne playing Genghis Khan.

Uh, someone did, but The Conqueror also featured red-haired, creamy-skinned Susan Hayward as a Tartar woman (as in "this Tar-tar wumman is for me...my blood says take her!"), and Pedro Armendariz, William Conrad, Agnes Moorehead, and Lee Van Cleef as Mongols.
IMDB comment: "Agnes Moorehead nearly manages to steal the show as her imitation of a talking prune is absolutely extraordinary... "

Straight Dope: Did John Wayne die of cancer caused by a radioactive movie set?

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 07:01:19 -0800

James Earl Jones played Anakin Skywalker (sort of).

Bruce Lee played the Japanese Filipino Kato in The Green Hornet. (I think the "Plenty of big-name Asian actors to take on Asian roles" remark ignores ethnic distictions that are glaringly obvious to Asians. See Asparagirl's comment concerning East Asians.)

By: cerebus19

cerebus19 — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 07:05:49 -0800

Sean Connery's been mentioned several times, but nobody's mentioned his role as a Lithuanian in The Hunt for Red October.

By: cerebus19

cerebus19 — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 07:07:55 -0800

Denzel Washington played Don Pedro in Much Ado About Nothing. He and Keanu Reeves played half-brothers, even.

By: cerebus19

cerebus19 — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 07:14:35 -0800

Stellan Skarsgård, who's Swedish, has played Americans (e.g., Good Will Hunting), a Russian (The Hunt for Red October), an Englishman (PotC 2), and a Spaniard (Goya's Ghosts), among other nationalities.

By: lampoil

lampoil — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 07:25:32 -0800

No one has mentioned Jennifer Lopez? She's probably the most famous Latina in America, and many of her roles have been women of Italian descent.

Meryl also kicked ass as the ghost of Ethel Rosenburg in Angels in America (as well as a Utah Mormon and an elderly male Rabbi...)

By: hsoltz

hsoltz — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 07:28:30 -0800

Shirley MacLaine played an Indian princess in Around the World in 80 Days, which was one of her very first movies.

Jodie Foster played a Frenchwoman - and performed her entire role in French - in A Very Long Engagement.

By: casarkos

casarkos — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 07:40:35 -0800

Sean Connery again--someone surnamed Ramirez in Highlander.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 08:03:21 -0800

Ooh, Connery in Highlander—Ramirez was actually an Egyptian, if I remember his story correctly. Those immortals were pretty international—moved around a bit, you know—which provided a convenient, if thin, explanation for the questionable accents on display throughout.

"You talk funny, Nash. Where you from?"
"Laowts of pleacez."

By: CCK

CCK — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 08:15:03 -0800

robert forster played an arab in DELTA FORCE.

By: trishthedish

trishthedish — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 08:42:35 -0800

If you're looking for "white man who plays black person" you'll NEVER find it. It would cause an uproar.

James Whitmore is a white man that played a black man in Black Like Me.

By: Not in my backyard

Not in my backyard — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 08:44:32 -0800

In The Human Stain, again, Wentworth Miller actually played the young, light-skinned African-American Coleman Silk (Anthony Hopkins plays the older Coleman). He now plays a white guy in Prison Break. Miller is of African, Jamaican, English, and German ethnicity on his father's side, and of Russian, French, Dutch, Syrian, and Lebanese ethnicity on his mother's.

By: DevilsAdvocate

DevilsAdvocate — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 08:55:19 -0800

Jonathan Pryce (Welsh) played a Vietnamese pimp in Miss Saigon.

He also played Juan Perón in the movie version of Evita.

By: of strange foe

of strange foe — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 09:35:42 -0800

Jennifer Jones played an Eurasian in "Love is a Many Splendored Thing".

By: marsha56

marsha56 — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 10:38:20 -0800

James Whitmore is a white man that played a black man in Black Like Me.

Not quite. James Whitmore plays a white man who pretends to be a black man.

By: bent back tulips

bent back tulips — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 11:15:16 -0800

And Lenny Henry played a black man pretending to be a white man in True Identity.

By: Phlogiston

Phlogiston — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 11:26:58 -0800

(Bloody html.) Warner Oland, a Swede, was typecast as an East Asian after playing a Japanese villain in the William Randolph Hearst financed propaganda piece Patria!. In addition to his aforementioned run as Charlie Chan, he played Fu Manchu and several other, less iconic roles.

Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee has also played Fu Manchu.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 12:51:29 -0800

Eddie Murphy was white in a Saturday Night Live sketch. (Ads on page NSFW.)

By: trishthedish

trishthedish — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 13:40:13 -0800

Not quite. James Whitmore plays a white man who pretends to be a black man.

yeah, ok. then although it was not filmed, John Howard Griffin played the part of a black man.

By: deborah

deborah — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:01:58 -0800

Not iconic, but several of the women cast as geishas in Memoirs of a Geisha (set in Japan) were Chinese actors.

The film was heavily criticized by Asian critics for having Chinese actresses portraying the geishas. In reality, according to producer Lucy Fisher, the producers held an open day for audition for Japanese actresses to audition for those roles. None turned up and they had to turn to other Asian actresses for casting.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 06:34:08 -0800

Joel Grey was Korean in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 10:04:14 -0800

C. Thomas Howell played a white person pretending to be black in Soul Man.

By: Big Fat Tycoon

Big Fat Tycoon — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 16:23:28 -0800

Check again on Cheech Marin, desuetude.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 06:49:52 -0800

Mel Brooks was Native American in Blazing Saddles.