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Throughout his extensive career, this petite Asian-American actor, born Victor Cheung Young on October 18, 1915, in San Francisco to Chinese immigrant parents, earned recognition in both film and television. After his mother passed away during the 1918-19 influenza epidemic, his father placed Victor and his sister in a children's shelter and returned to China. He came back to the United States in the mid-1920s with a new wife, reclaimed the children, and began teaching them Chinese. At age 11, to help support the family, Victor worked as a houseboy and later funded his studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a degree in economics with an interest in animal husbandry.
Following postgraduate studies at UCLA and USC, Victor moved to Hollywood and started his film career as an extra, appearing as a peasant boy in The Good Earth (1937) and a soldier in Mr. Moto Takes a Chance (1938), among others. During this period, he also sold chemicals. In a unique Hollywood discovery story, Victor was on the 20th Century-Fox lot pitching flame retardant compounds when someone suggested he try acting. When Warner Oland, the original Charlie Chan, passed away, the series sought new casting. After a screen test, Sidney Toler, the new Chan, selected Victor to play his second son, Jimmy Chan, in Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938). Victor reprised this role in seventeen more Charlie Chan films, leaving his sales career behind.
Victor enjoyed portraying Jimmy, the earnest rookie detective often supervised by his famous father while solving murders. However, offscreen, he found Hollywood's environment stifling, frequently cast in stereotypical Asian roles, sometimes villainous, in wartime films like The Letter (1940), Secret Agent of Japan (1942), Little Tokyo, U.S.A. (1942), Moontide (1942), Across the Pacific (1942), Manila Calling (1942), China (1943), and Night Plane from Chungking (1943), which did little to advance his career. His acting was interrupted when he served as a U.S. Air Force Intelligence Captain during WWII, with Benson Fong taking over his Chan role.
After the war, Victor resumed his Hollywood career and returned as the #2 son in the Charlie Chan series, though the character's name changed from Jimmy to Tommy after Roland Winters became the lead following Toler's death in 1947. Despite steady work, his roles remained limited and uninspiring, often in B-level crime and war films, many uncredited. He was frequently cast in middle-aged servile roles such as houseboys, laundrymen, valets, clerks, dock workers, and waiters. Notable appearances include Woman on the Run (1950), Forbidden (1953), Target Hong Kong (1953), and Trader Tom of the China Seas (1954). His final film role was in The Man with Bogart's Face (1980).
On television, Victor had two recurring roles: as Peter Fong, cousin to Sammee Tong’s character, on the final season of Bachelor Father (1957), and more famously as Hop Sing, the earnest and sometimes volatile cook on Bonanza (1959), who provided occasional comic relief. He also appeared in the TV pilot and several episodes of Kung Fu (1972), as well as dramatic roles in Hawaiian Eye (1959), The F.B.I. (1965), and Hawaii Five-O (1968). Sitcom appearances showcased his gentle humor in Here's Lucy (1968), Get Smart (1965), and Mister Ed (1961).
Married and divorced with one child, Victor sought work beyond acting by the mid-1970s. An accomplished Cantonese-style chef, he demonstrated cooking in department stores and published the Great Wok Cookbook in 1974, dedicating it to his father, Sen Gam Yung.
In November 1980, Victor Sen Yung was found dead in his modest San Fernando Valley home under initially mysterious circumstances. An investigation concluded he had accidentally asphyxiated in his sleep after turning on a faulty kitchen stove for heat. He was survived by his son, Brent Kee Young, and two grandchildren.
