Skip to main content
Victor Sen Yung

Victor Sen Yung

Actor · 1915 – 1980 · San Francisco, California, USA

Victor Sen Young (born Victor Cheung Young or Sen Yew Cheung; October 18, 1915 – body discovered November 9, 1980) was an American character actor, best known for playing Jimmy Chan in the Charlie Chan films and Hop Sing in the Western series Bonanza. He was born in San Francisco, California to Gum Yung Sen and his first wife, both immigrants from China. His mother died during the flu epidemic of 1919. His father placed Victor and his younger sister, Rosemary, in a children's shelter, and returned to his homeland to seek another wife. He returned in 1922 with his new wife, Lovi Shee, forming a household with his two children. Sen Yung made his first significant acting debut in the 1938 film Charlie Chan in Honolulu, as the Chinese detective's "number two son", Jimmy Chan. Sen Yung played Jimmy Chan in 11 Charlie Chan films between 1938 and 1942. Moonlighting from the popular Chan series, Sen Yung won critical acclaim playing the nuanced role of Ong Chi Seng, a young attorney assisting Howard Joyce, in defending Leslie Crosbie, in The Letter. Like other Chinese-American actors, he was cast in Japanese parts during World War II, like his role as the treacherous Japanese-American Joe Totsuiko in the 1942 Humphrey Bogart film Across the Pacific. During World War II he joined the U.S. Army Air Forces just as his erstwhile co-star Sidney Toler was set to revive the dormant Charlie Chan series at Monogram Pictures. Sen Yung's military obligations forced him to decline rejoining the series immediately, but Monogram gave him a standing invitation to work there after his tour of duty. Sen Yung's military service included work in training films at the First Motion Picture Unit and a role in the Army Air Forces' play and film Winged Victory. In 1946 Sen Yung resumed his Hollywood career at Monogram, now billed as Victor Sen Young, and reunited with Sidney Toler. Toler's health was failing; Monogram was conserving Toler's waning energy, limiting his scenes and giving him long rest periods during filming. To relieve the burden on Toler, Monogram entrusted much of the action to Victor Sen Young; he and either Mantan Moreland or Willie Best shared much of the footage in Toler's final three films, Dangerous Money, Shadows Over Chinatown, and The Trap. The addition of Moreland as Chan's black chauffeur, Birmingham Brown, reflected the fact that by this time the Chan pictures had a significant following among black Americans, who liked a film series that for once did not feature a white hero. Moreland's popularity in the Chan pictures was so great that he was booked for a nationwide vaudeville tour. Following Toler's death in 1947, Victor Sen Young appeared in five of the remaining six Charlie Chan features. His character "Jimmy" was renamed "Tommy". Victor Sen Young continued to work in motion pictures and television in roles ranging from featured players (affable or earnest Asian characters) to bit roles (clerks, houseboys, waiters, etc.). Arguably even more than for his work in the Charlie Chan films, Victor Sen Yung is remembered as "Hop Sing," the irascible cook and general factotum on the iconic television series Bonanza, appearing in 107 episodes between 1959 and 1973. Sen Yung was also an accomplished and talented chef. He frequently appeared on cooking programs and authored The Great Wok Cookbook in 1974.

Movies24

  • Movie6.3

    The Left Hand of God

    1955 · 44 votes

  • Movie5.8

    The Killer Elite

    1975 · 149 votes

  • Movie6.5

    The Blue Gardenia

    1953 · 104 votes

  • Movie6.7

    The Sniper

    1952 · 84 votes

  • Movie6.8

    Woman on the Run

    1950 · 116 votes

  • Movie7.3

    The Letter

    1940 · 253 votes

  • Movie5.9

    Blood Alley

    1955 · 60 votes

  • Movie5.8

    The Hunters

    1958 · 25 votes

  • Movie6.8

    The Movie Orgy

    1968 · 19 votes

  • Movie5.5

    The Hawaiians

    1970 · 20 votes

  • Movie6.0

    A Ticket to Tomahawk

    1950 · 18 votes

  • Movie6.6

    Across the Pacific

    1942 · 88 votes

  • Movie6.0

    Soldier of Fortune

    1955 · 33 votes

  • Movie6.6

    Men in War

    1957 · 69 votes

  • Movie5.6

    The Rawhide Years

    1956 · 14 votes

  • Movie5.8
  • Movie6.7
  • Movie6.2

    Thank You, Mr. Moto

    1937 · 23 votes

  • Movie6.5

    Key to the City

    1950 · 11 votes

  • Movie6.3

    The Good Earth

    1937 · 81 votes

  • Movie6.0
  • Movie6.4

    The Saga of Hemp Brown

    1958 · 9 votes

  • Movie6.5

    Charlie Chan in Honolulu

    1938 · 22 votes

  • Movie7.2

    They Met in Bombay

    1941 · 20 votes

Series24

  • TV5.8

    The Mike Douglas Show

    1961 · 11 votes

  • TV7.7

    Perry Mason

    1957 · 139 votes

  • TV7.5

    Bonanza

    1959 · 500 votes

  • TV7.1

    The Rifleman

    1958 · 54 votes

  • TV8.0

    Get Smart

    1965 · 448 votes

  • TV7.2

    Hawaii Five-O

    1969 · 164 votes

  • TV5.6

    The F.B.I.

    1965 · 25 votes

  • TV6.4

    Police Woman

    1974 · 33 votes

  • TV7.6

    The Wild Wild West

    1965 · 86 votes

  • TV5.6

    Hawaiian Eye

    1959 · 10 votes

  • TV7.8

    Night Gallery

    1970 · 112 votes

  • TV6.7

    Here's Lucy

    1968 · 31 votes

  • TV7.1

    Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

    1964 · 35 votes

  • TV6.7

    Thriller

    1960 · 20 votes

  • TV6.2

    Yancy Derringer

    1958 · 11 votes

  • TV7.2

    The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

    1964 · 75 votes

  • TV7.8

    The Jack Benny Program

    1950 · 17 votes

  • TV6.8

    Mister Ed

    1961 · 57 votes

  • TV7.0

    How the West Was Won

    1977 · 35 votes

  • TV6.7

    Adventures of Superman

    1952 · 63 votes

  • TV6.8
  • TV5.2

    Navy Log

    1955 · 5 votes

  • TV7.8

    87th Precinct

    1961 · 5 votes

  • TV6.4