Sidney Toler

Sidney Toler
Born	April 28, 1874 Warrensburg, Missouri, U.S.
Died	February 12, 1947 (aged 72) Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, playwright, theatre director
Years active	1903–1947
Spouse(s)	Vivian Marston (1907-1943) (her death) Viva Tattersall (1943-1947) (his death)

Sidney Toler (April 28, 1874 – February 12, 1947) was an American actor, playwright, and theatre director. Of primarily Scottish ancestry, he was the second non-Asian actor to play the role of Charlie Chan on screen.

Early life and career

Born in Warrensburg, Missouri, Toler showed a very early interest in the theater, acting in an amateur production of Tom Sawyer at the age of seven. Following his graduation from college, he became a professional actor in Kansas City, and then worked for a touring company during the late 1890s. For three decades, he acted on the stage in New York City, working with such future stars as Edward G. Robinson, John Barrymore, Katharine Hepburn, and Humphrey Bogart. In 1921, he co-wrote and directed Golden Days, a comedy starring Helen Hayes. Throughout the 1920s, Toler had an active role in co-writing or directing several other plays including The Exile (1923), Bye, Bye, Barbara (1924), and Ritzy (1930, co-written with Viva Tattersall).

In 1929, Toler worked in his first Hollywood film, playing an Englishman in Madame X. For nearly ten years, he worked in roles that supported well-known stars in films such as Blonde Venus (1932), starring Marlene Dietrich, The Phantom President (1932), with George M. Cohan, and Call of the Wild (1935), featuring Clark Gable.

Charlie Chan series

Following the death of Warner Oland, Twentieth Century-Fox began the search for a new Charlie Chan. Thirty-four actors were tested before the studio decided on Sidney Toler. Twentieth Century-Fox announced its choice on October 18, 1938, and filming began less than a week later on Charlie Chan in Honolulu, which had been originally scripted for Warner Oland and Keye Luke. Toler's portrayal of the Chinese detective in Charlie Chan in Honolulu was very well received. Besides Toler, there was another change in the series. Sen Yung, as Number Two Son Jimmy, replaced Number One Son Lee, who had been played by Keye Luke. Toler's Chan, rather than merely mimicking the character that Oland had portrayed, had a somewhat sharper edge that was well suited for the rapid changes of the times, both political and cultural. When needed, Charlie Chan now displayed overt sarcasm, usually toward his son Jimmy.

Through four years and eleven films, Toler played Charlie Chan for Twentieth Century-Fox. However, in 1942, following the completion of Castle in the Desert, Fox concluded the series. The wartime collapse of the international film market may have been a factor, but the main reason was that Fox was curtailing virtually all of its low-budget series; Fox's other "B" series (Jane Withers, Michael Shayne, The Cisco Kid) also ended that year. (Only Laurel and Hardy remained in Fox's "B" unit, until it shut down at the end of 1944.)

Sidney Toler immediately sought the screen rights to the Charlie Chan character from Eleanor Biggers Cole, the widow of Chan's creator, Earl Derr Biggers. He had hoped that Fox would distribute new Charlie Chan films, starring himself, if he could find someone willing to finance the productions. Fox declined, but Toler sold the idea to Monogram Pictures, a lower-budget film studio. Phil Krasne, a Hollywood lawyer who invested in film productions, partnered with James Burkett to produce the Monogram Chans.

With the release of Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944), the effects of a more limited budget were somewhat apparent. Production values were no match for those of Fox; Monogram's budgets were typically about 40% of what Fox's had been. In fairness to Monogram, the films did gradually improve, with The Chinese Cat, The Shanghai Cobra, and Dark Alibi often cited as favorites by fans. Cast changes were again made: Sen Yung's Jimmy was replaced by Benson Fong as Number Three Son Tommy, and Mantan Moreland played the ever-present and popular Birmingham Brown, who brought comedy relief (and black audiences) to the series. Monogram's Charlie Chan films boasted tricky screenplays with many surprise culprits and murder devices, and were profitable and successful.

Personal life

Toler's first wife was Vivian Marston, an American actress of Spanish and Canadian ancestry, whom he married in 1907 and who occasionally used the surname Marston-Toler professionally.^[1][2][3] She died in 1943. The couple had no children.

In 1943, Toler married Viva Tattersall (née Vera Tattersall, 1898-1989), a British-born actress who also co-wrote several plays with Toler, including Ritzy (1930) and Dress Parade (1929).^[4] Their marriage lasted until Toler's death in 1947. The couple had no children.

Later years and death

By the end of 1946, age and illness were affecting Sidney Toler. Diagnosed with cancer, the 72-year-old Toler was so ill during the filming of Dangerous Money (1946) and Shadows over Chinatown (1946) that he could hardly walk. Monogram hired Toler's original foil, "Number Two Son" Victor Sen Yung, for Toler's last two films, quite probably to ease the burden on Toler. Toler mustered enough strength to complete his last film, The Trap, which was filmed in July-August 1946 and released in November that same year. (Yung and Moreland relieve Toler of much of the action in The Trap). Toler's Monogram output matched his Fox output: 11 films for each studio.

Sidney Toler died on February 12, 1947, at his home in Los Angeles, California from intestinal cancer. Monogram continued the series with actor Roland Winters who appeared in six more feature films as Charlie Chan.

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1920	The Bait		writer of source material, play The Tiger Lady
1921	A Heart to Let		writer with Harriett Lummis Smith of source material, the play Agatha's Aunt
1929	Madame X	Dr. Merivel	Alternative title: Absinthe
1930	The Devil's Parade	Satan
1931	White Shoulders	William Sothern
	Strictly Dishonorable	Patrolman Mulligan
1932	Blondie of the Follies	Pete
	Blonde Venus	Det. Wilson
	The Phantom President	Professor Aikenhead
	Speak Easily	Stage Director
1933	The Narrow Corner	Ryan, the Go-Between
1934	Dark Hazard	John Bright
	Spitfire	Mr. Jim Sawyer
	The Trumpet Blows	Pepi Sancho
	Upper World	Officer Moran
1935	Romance in Manhattan	Police Sergeant
	The Call of the Wild	Joe Groggins
1936	Three Godfathers	Prof. Amos Snape
	The Gorgeous Hussy	Daniel Webster
	Our Relations	Captain of SS Periwinkle
1937	That Certain Woman	Detective Lieutenant Neely
	Double Wedding	Mr. Keough
1938	Gold Is Where You Find It	Harrison McCooey
	The Mysterious Rider	Frosty Kilburn
	If I Were King	Robin Turgis
	Up the River	Jeffrey Mitchell
	Charlie Chan in Honolulu	Charlie Chan
1939
	Law of the Pampas	Fernando	A Hopalong Cassidy Film
	Disbarred	G.L. "Hardy" Mardsen
	Charlie Chan in City in Darkness	Charlie Chan
1940	Charlie Chan in Panama	Charlie Chan
	Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise	Charlie Chan
	Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum	Charlie Chan
	Murder Over New York	Charlie Chan
1941	Charlie Chan in Rio	Charlie Chan
	Dead Men Tell	Charlie Chan
1942	Castle in the Desert	Charlie Chan
1943	A Night to Remember	Inspector Hankins
	White Savage	Wong
	Isle of Forgotten Sins	Krogan/Carruthers	Alternative title Monsoon
1944	Charlie Chan in the Secret Service	Charlie Chan	The first Monogram "Charlie Chan" film
	The Chinese Cat	Charlie Chan	Alternate title Murder in the Funhouse
	Black Magic	Charlie Chan	Alternate title Meeting at Midnight
1945	It's in the Bag!	Detective Sully	Alternative title: The Fifth Chair
	The Shanghai Cobra	Charlie Chan
	The Jade Mask	Charlie Chan
	The Red Dragon	Charlie Chan
	The Scarlet Clue	Charlie Chan
1946	Dark Alibi	Charlie Chan
	Shadows Over Chinatown	Charlie Chan
	Dangerous Money	Charlie Chan
	The Trap	Charlie Chan

Works

• Playthings (1918)
• The Bait (1921)(*made into a 1921 silent The Bait)
• A Heart to Let (1921)

References

1. Marriage year and ancestry cited in 1910 U. S. Federal Census for Massachusetts, accessed online at ancestry.com on 25 September 2011
2. Career outlined in Johnson Briscoe, "The Actors' Birthday Book" (Moffat, Yard & Company, 1908), page 54
3. Surname Marston-Toler given in "The Green Book Album: A Magazine of the Passing Show", January 1910, page 429
4. "Catalogue of Copyright Entries", US Government Printing Office, 1929, page 6

External links

• Sidney Toler at the Internet Movie Database
• Sidney Toler at the Internet Broadway Database
• Sidney Toler at Find a Grave