I had been sitting on a nice signed photo of James Hong from the TV series Kung Fu since he had signed it in June 1996 at a Hollywood Collectors Show that my friend Bob attended. It only took 14 years until I had the chance to meet him and round out the James Hong experience by getting a photo with him. My interest in James Hong had primarily for his one-shot performance in the Seinfeld episode The Chinese Restaurant, when he portrayed the maitre’d who frustrated the cast by repeatedly telling them that they would be seated in five/ten minutes. Of course, he didn’t call out “Seinfeld – FOUR!” until just seconds after they had given up and left.
Hong may have been well-known in this role, but his career had spanned five decades with more than 500 film and TV roles to his credit. Among his film credits were Blade Runner, Airplane!, and Big Trouble in Little China. As far as Disney connections, he starred in an episode of Zorro and voiced Chi Fu in Mulan. Other TV show appearances include I Dream of Jeannie, M*A*S*H, Here’s Lucy, The Bob Newhart Show, All in the Family, Diff’rent Strokes, and Friends. In short, this was a great guy to get a picture with.
I finally got to meet James Hong on April 24, 2010, at the Hollywood Show in Burbank. Unfortunately, my standard ‘I met you before but didn’t have a camera’ ploy didn’t quite work – even though I had the Kung Fu photo with me. His basic stance on this was that it would cost $20 to get behind the table to get a photo with him, whether I wanted to used it on purchasing a new photo or not. This wasn’t all bad, as I did kind of have my eye on the Seinfeld photo below. And he made it worthwhile, by adding some lines of dialogue on the photo and posing for a couple of great shots – including the great shot at the top of the posting of him actually saying “Seinfeld – FOUR!”
Celebs of the Spring 2010 Hollywood Show will continue…
Hey Brad, I hope all is well with you. Looks like you have a few trips planned so far down south and out west. Sounds like a good time. Any other big trip planned for this year.
Tommy Rogers
February 17th, 2011