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Achieving both film and TV notice during his lengthy career, this diminutive Asian-American character was born Sen Yew Cheung on October 18, 1915 in San Francisco of humble Chinese émigrés. When his mother died during the flu epidemic of 1919, his father placed Victor and his sister in a children's shelter and returned to his homeland. He arrived back in America in the mid-20s having remarried, and the children were released back to his guardianship where they began learning Chinese. To contribute to the family income, young Sen Yung was employed as a houseboy at age 11 and managed to earn his way through college at the University of California at Berkeley with an interest in animal husbandry and receiving a degree in economics. Following a move to Hollywood for some post graduate work at UCLA and USC, Victor gained an entrance into films via extra work, where he was in such roles as a peasant boy in _The Good Earth , but there was not a single role that truly improved his standing in Hollywood. Married and divorced with one child, Victor was looking for work outside of acting by the mid-1970s. At one point he was giving cooking demonstrations in department stores. An accomplished chef who specialized in Cantonese-style cooking, he wrote the 1974 Great Wok Cookbook and dedicated the book to his father, Sen Gam Yung. Victor was working on a second cookbook when he was suddenly found dead in November of 1980 under initially "mysterious circumstances" in his modest San Fernando Valley bungalow. Following an investigation it was determined that Victor was accidentally asphyxiated in his sleep after turning on a faulty kitchen stove for heat. He was survived by his son and two grandchildren.
Remembered as "No. 2 Son," Jimmy Chan, in Sidney Toler s Charlie Chan movies of the 1930s and 40s.
Perhaps more familiar to TV audiences as Hop Sing, the ranch cook, in "Bonanza" .
Played the role of "Number Two Son" in 25 Charlie Chan films during the late 1930s and most of the 1940s; his comedic character was alternately named James, Jimmy, or Tommy Chan.
He majored in animal husbandry at the College of Agriculture at the University of California, Berkeley, and has a memorial scholarship named after him, awarded each year by the Chinese Alumni Association.
In 1972, Yung, while returning to Los Angeles from San Francisco. He was among the passengers on a PSA airliner hijacked by two Bulgarians demanding ransom and passage to Siberia. Yung and another passenger were wounded. And a third passenger and the two hijackers were killed when FBI agents stormed the plane on the ground at San Francisco.
Was an accomplished Cantonese cook and penned the book "Great Wok Cookbook" in 1974.
Yung served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II, first making training films at the First Motion Picture Unit, then as a member of the cast of "Winged Victory," the Air Forces theatrical play and film (as Sgt. Victor Young). He then requested officer training and apparently reached the rank of captain.
He was also an accomplished artist. He did several production drawings for the Charlie Chan movie series. Some of his work is still in Hollywoods Graumanns Chinese Theater.
Victor Sen Yung died of natural-gas poisoning in his home. Though his body was discovered on November 10, 1980, the coroners office determined he had been dead approximately ten days, putting his actual date of death at about November 1, 1980.
His son, Brent Kee Young, is an accomplished glass artist, and a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art (CIA).
