WARNER OLAND: A SOBERING STORY

 

Film star Warner Oland was born Johan Verner Ölund on October 3, 1879 in the seaport town of Umea, Sweden. When he was 10 years old, the family immigrated to the United States when his father tired of trying to make a living in the harsh climate. “Even at that age,” Oland said of himself in an interview in PHOTOPLAY (February 1918), “my ambitions were definitely formed—I decided to be an operatic star.” He went to Boston “where the music was” and soon found that “art must be sacrificed to appetite”.

A young Werner Oland.

Next, he turned to the stage where acting was a more suitable fit than a singing career—and besides, the money was better. He played numerous villains during this period and was often cast as an Asian because of his vaguely similar features (With a very few exceptions, Asians were still a long way from starring or supporting roles). During this period he met the woman who would be his future wife: a distinguished portrait painter named Edith Gardener Shearn, who notice him at a play and began to visit him during rehearsals, after which they were married.

Werner Oland as Charlie Chan.

Werner Oland and Charlie Chan cast members.

With Rita Hayworth in Charlie Chan in Egypt.

Oland’s next move was screen acting, and he found himself demand for many of the same types of characters he played on stage. He is best known for his roles as Fu Manchu and especially the wise American-Chinese Honolulu detective Charlie Chan in a series of hugely successful films for Fox based on the five novels by Earl Derr Biggers. Compared with Universal’s early horror pictures, Oland’s Chan films brought in enough box office earnings to keep Fox out of financial trouble during the first unstable years of the Great Depression. It is estimated that he earned a total of $640,000 over the course of 16 feature films.

One Sheet theatrical poster.

Oland stars with Boris Karloff.

Oland stars with Bela Lugosi.

  Oland and his wife lived well and spent the money he earned, sharing their time between a bungalow in Beverly Hills when he was making pictures in Hollywood, a beach house in Carpinteria, California, an old farmhouse outside Boston and a 7,000-acre island off Mexico. Oland is also noted for translating with his wife, the Swedish author August Strindberg’s works into English.

With Henry Hull in Werewolf of London.

Despite his popularity and fortune, Oland had an Achilles heel: like so many other Hollywood actors, he was a chronic alcoholic. After years of heavy drinking and smoking, he became unpredictable and irrational to the point where, among other humiliating incidents, he unceremoniously walked off the set of his last Chan film. This eventually led to an acrimonious divorce on April 2, 1938 after 30 years of a seemingly otherwise happy marriage.

A physical wreck, after the divorce he returned to Sweden where his health quickly worsened. He contracted bronchial pneumonia and died in a Swedish hospital on August 6, 1938 at the age of 58.

His ex-wife Edith survived him by 30 years.

MOVIE MIRROR (November 1935):

PHOTOPLAY (January 1918):

PHOTOPLAY (January 1936):

Who's Who on the Screen (1920):