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| Birth Name(s) : Gedde Watanabe |
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Full Gedde Watanabe Biography
Watanabe was born Gary Watanabe in Ogden, Utah. He was in several dramatic productions in high school, both acting and singing. After graduating from high school, he left Ogden for San Francisco, where he hoped to make his living as a street musician while honing his acting skills.
He appeared on Broadway in 1976 in Pacific Overtures and has appeared in a number of films and television shows. He appeared on Sesame Street for some years and had a recurring role on ER from 1998 to 2002. In 1998 he was the voice for Ling in the Disney film Mulan and reprised the role for the 2004 straight-to-video sequel, Mulan II.
His acting parts have been mostly caricatured Asians with heavy accents (although he does not actually speak Japanese). Jason Buchanan wrote for All Movie Guide, "The character that Gedde Watanabe is most remembered for is no doubt "Long Duk Dong", the spastic foreign exchange student in Sixteen Candles whose drunken fall from a tree and laughable bastardization of the English language had ninth graders of the day rolling in theater aisles." Although the showing of Sixteen Candles in a San Francisco park in 2007 generated considerable objections in the Asian American press, the stereotypical part is far better remembered than that of the protagonist played by Molly Ringwald, and marked one of the more successful careers of an Asian American actor.
Watanabe had a starring role in both the film and ABC-TV versions of Gung Ho. The television series was scheduled against the hit show Dallas, and was quickly cancelled. He has also provided the voice for various Japanese characters on TV's The Simpsons. From 1996 to 2003 he made occasional appearances as a gay nurse, Yosh, on the popular television drama ER. He also appeared in the film That Thing You Do as a photographer working for studio boss Sol Siler.
Watanabe co-starred as Kuni in the 1989 movie UHF starring Weird Al Yankovic. Perhaps the character's most memorable moment in the film is when he and a group of his martial artist friends jump out of a supply closet to attack a group of thugs. The closet is labeled "Supplies," and as Kuni and his cohorts emerge from the closet they yell "Supplies!" in an Engrish mispronunciation of "Surprise!" He reprised this role on the Weird Al Show. |
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