Leonard Strong

Acting

Leonard Strong

Born 1908-08-12 · Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

Leonard Clarence Strong (born 12 August 1908, Salt Lake City, Utah - d. 23 January 1980, Glendale, California was a prolific American character actor specialising in playing Asian roles. Beginning with Little Tokyo, U.S.A in 1942, Strong played a gamut of roles as Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Thais, etc. in films such as Dragon Seed (1944),Up in Arms (1944), Jack London (1943), Salute to the Marines (1943), Behind the Rising Sun (1943), Night Plane from Chungking (1943), Bombardier (1943),Underground Agent (1942), and Manila Calling (1942). He played the Thai interpreter in both Anna and the King of Siam and its musical remake The King and I. Strong also appeared in the movie Shane (1953) as homesteader Ernie Wright. Strong achieved some pop culture notoriety for his role on television as "The Claw" on Get Smart. He appeared in a season-five episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960) "The Cure" written by horror writer Robert Bloch. Set deep in an Amazon jungle, Strong plays Luiz, a loyal native who speaks broken English and saves his employer, an oil explorer, from the attempted murder of his supposedly mentally ill and unfaithful wife. Something gets lost in the translation when his employer wants Strong to take her to a psychiatrist 200 miles down river, and he takes her instead to a native headshrinker. The denouement comes when Strong returns alone to the shock of his employer. He says, "I do what you tell me. I take her to my people. The best headshrinkers in the world". Then, pulling his employer's wife's now shrunken head out of a bag, he says, "Best job in the world." Another notable television role was his haunting and mostly silent portrayal of the title character in the original Twilight Zone episode, "The Hitch-Hiker", which is often listed as one of the ten best episodes of the series. With his thumb extended, seeking a ride, and asking "Going my way?", Strong is seen in one of the half-dozen, seconds-long scenes used at the start of every one of the 30 DVDs in the CBS DVD five-season collection, "The Twilight Zone, The Definitive Edition."

Acting credits

The King and I poster
7.1

Widowed Welsh mother Anna Leonowens becomes a governess and English tutor to the wives and many children of the stubborn King Mongkut of Siam. Anna and the King have a clash of personalities as she works to teach the royal family about the English language, customs and etiquette, and rushes to prepare a party for a group of European diplomats who must change their opinions about the King.

The King and I

1956

Shane poster
7.3

A weary gunfighter attempts to settle down with a homestead family, but a smouldering settler and rancher conflict forces him to act.

Shane

1953

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing poster
6.1

A widowed doctor of both Chinese and European descent falls in love with a married American correspondent in Hong Kong during China's Communist revolution.

Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing

1955

The Keys of the Kingdom poster
7.1

A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a priest, flourishes in his calling as a priest in a more Christian area of the world, Father Chisholm struggles. He encounters hostility, isolation, disease, poverty and a variety of set backs which humble him, but make him more determined than ever to succeed.

The Keys of the Kingdom

1944

Back to Bataan poster
6.1

A U.S. Army colonel leads local fighters in a guerrilla campaign against the Japanese in the Philippines.

Back to Bataan

1945

The Naked Jungle poster
6.6

The Leiningen South American cocoa plantation is threatened by a 2-mile-wide, 20-mile-long column of army ants.

The Naked Jungle

1954

Sword of the Avenger poster
7.7

Roberto Balagtas is falsely arrested for treason and sent to prison where he is tortured. He escapes with other prisoners, but only Batagtas survives the escape, carrying with him a treasure map left by one of the others. He crosses paths with Ming Tang (Strong) and a group of Chinese smugglers, with whom he finds the treasure. The booty makes him extremely wealthy, and he changes his name to Don Diego Sebastian. He then goes back to the Philippines to seek his revenge.

Sword of the Avenger

1948

Backfire poster
5.9

When he's discharged from a military hospital, ex-GI Bob Corey goes on a search for his army buddy Steve Connolly. A reformed crook, Connolly is on the lam from a trumped-up murder rap, and Corey hopes to clear his pal. Tagging along is Army nurse Julie Benson, who has fallen for Corey.

Backfire

1950

Cult of the Cobra poster
6.0

While stationed in Asia, six American G.I.'s witness the secret ritual of Lamians (worshipers of women who can change into serpents). When discovered by the cult, the High Lamian Priest vows that "the Cobra Goddess will avenge herself". Once back in the United States, a mysterious woman enters into their lives and accidents begin to happen. The shadow of a cobra is seen just before each death.

Cult of the Cobra

1955

Scared Stiff poster
6.5

A nightclub singer and his partner escape mobsters by fleeing to Cuba with a beautiful heiress, who has inherited a haunted castle on an isolated island. The trio hunt for a hidden treasure and encounter a ghost, a zombie, and a mysterious killer...

Scared Stiff

1953

Blood on the Sun poster
5.9

Nick Condon, an American journalist in 20s Tokyo, publishes the Japanese master plan for world domination. Reaction from the understandably upset Japanese provides the action, but this is overshadowed by the propaganda of the time.

Blood on the Sun

1945

Bombardier poster
5.7

A documentary/drama about the training of bombardiers during WWII. Major Chick Davis proves to the U.S. Army the superiority of high altitude precision bombing, and establishes a school for bombardiers. Training is followed in semi-documentary style, with personal dramas in subplots. The climax is a spectacular sequence.

Bombardier

1943

Bengal Brigade poster
5.2

Year 1856, British India. Capt. Jeffrey Claybourne is severely punished after disobeying an order. Feeling unworthy of his fiancée Vivian Morrow, the daughter of his superior officer, Claybourne leaves the army until he could regain his reputation. When the Rajah Karam launches an attack on the British forces in India, Claybourne finds a chance at redemption.

Bengal Brigade

1954

Escape from Zahrain poster
6.1

Yul Brynner plays political leader Sharif who is sprung from a police van on his way to a firing squad by young loyalists led by Sal Mineo. Yul and the other prisoners kidnap an ambulance and head into the Arabian desert with the police in hot pursuit. All the performances are magnificent: Sal Mineo showing his acting talents, Jack Warden in a wiseguy performance as an employee of Zahrain oil who was involved in embezzlement, Anthony Caruso as a slimy psychotic and the underrated Madlyn Rhue as a nurse who becomes emotionally involved in the proceedings.

Escape from Zahrain

1962

Behind the Rising Sun poster
6.1

A Japanese publisher urges his American-educated son to side with the Axis.

Behind the Rising Sun

1943

Jet Attack poster
5.4

A Soviet nurse helps a U.S. pilot, his buddies and a scientist escape from North Korea. American International Pictures originally distributed this film as a double feature with "Suicide Battalion".

Jet Attack

1958

Hell's Half Acre poster
5.5

A woman travels to Hawaii to find out if a man in prison there is actually her missing husband.

Hell's Half Acre

1954

The Atomic City poster
5.7

Spies hold the son of a nuclear physicist (Gene Barry) hostage in exchange for the Los Alamos bomb formula.

The Atomic City

1952

Destination Gobi poster
5.9

A group of US Navy weathermen taking measurements in the Gobi desert in World War II are forced to seek the help of Mongol nomads to regain their ship while under attack from the Japanese.

Destination Gobi

1953

Prisoner of War poster
4.5

American soldiers, captured by North Korean's, are periodically brainwashed into giving up their capitalist ways to join the communist movement.

Prisoner of War

1954

Jewels of Brandenburg poster
6.0

A former secret agent is sent to retrieve a priceless collection of stolen jewels from a Lisbon nightclub owner who worked both sides during World War II.

Jewels of Brandenburg

1947

First Yank into Tokyo poster
6.0

A U.S. pilot undergoes plastic surgery and drops into Japan to get a captive scientist's (Marc Cramer) atomic secrets.

First Yank into Tokyo

1945

Dangerous Millions poster
5.4

Eight strangers meet in Shanghai to stake claims to the fortune of a late shipping magnate, then must evade a murderer in their midst.

Dangerous Millions

1946

Backlash poster
4.8

In a series of flashbacks, shows that attorney John Morland has given a lift to a hitchhiker who turns out to be a murderer. As a result, Morland himself is implicated in a killing. A pair of detectives discover that Morland has been having business problems and no end of difficulties with his wife Catherine. The trail of clues leads to a surprising revelation.

Backlash

1947