Russell Wong
| Russell Wong | |
|---|---|
Russell Wong in 2009
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| Background information | |
| Chinese name | 王盛德 |
| Birth name | Russell Girard Wong |
| Born |
March 1, 1963 Troy, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1985–present |
| Spouse(s) | Flora Cheong-Leen (Divorced) |
| Children | Eja Robinson-Wong |
Russell Girard Wong (Chinese: 王盛德; pinyin: Wáng Shèngdé; born March 1, 1963) is an American actor. He is the brother of actor/model Michael Wong. He was the series lead of the TV show Vanishing Son, but the show was short-lived. The show is one of the few American TV series in television history featuring an Asian American series lead, and is also considered ground-breaking for casting an Asian male in an attractive, "leading man" role on Television.
The sixth of seven children, Wong was born in Troy, New York; the son of Chinese-American restaurateur William Wong and Connie Van Yserloo, an American artist of Dutch and French descent. His family moved to Albany when he was a baby, where his father ran a restaurant. When Wong was seven years old, his parents divorced, and he moved with his mother to California, settling near Yosemite. In 1981, Wong graduated from Mariposa County High School, and that fall enrolled at Santa Monica City College.
Wong supported himself as a photographer and as a dancer (appearing in rock videos with David Bowie, Donna Summer, and Janet Jackson, among others) before scoring his first screen roles in 1985, appearing in a Hong Kong musical called Ge wu sheng ping (aka Musical Dancer) and in a screen adaptation of James Clavell's best-seller Tai-Pan (as Gordon Chen). A number of television and film roles followed, including an appearance as Narong Bansari on an episode of the 80s crime show The Equalizer, but Wong began breaking into better roles in 1989, when he made a memorable guest appearance on the drama series 21 Jump Street (as Locke in the episode "The Dragon and the Angel") and won a leading role in Wayne Wang's acclaimed independent romantic comedy Eat a Bowl of Tea as Ben Loy. He also played a rising Chinese American gangster named Yung Gan in Abel Ferrara's China Girl, a Romeo and Juliet love story film about the conflicts between Chinese gangsters and the Italian mob in New York.
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