James Wing Woo

James Wing Woo was born September 26, 1922, on the property of a Standard Oil refinery in Oleum California, north of Oakland. His father had a restaurant there and lived nearby with his wife and children.The Woo family would grow to a number of eight boys (James was the second). Before it did, however, the Woos moved to China. It was 1928, and James was six. But his father had gotten involved in tong wars in the Bay Area, and, as James recalls, had "a price on his head." In 1938, James and a brother settled in San Francisco. The 16 year-old James attended school and found work as a waiter. He also found use for his martial arts education. In 1961, the Academy of Karate Kung fu opened in a large storefront at 5440 Hollywood Boulevard. In the 1970's, with Bruce Lee and other martial artists taking kung fu fighting to the big screen, James and his most accomplished students began drawing attention from Hollywood producers and directors. James got his first role in Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite in 1975, after he'd almost tossed the director out of his studio. James wound up playing "Tao Yi," but notes that he never actually performed martial arts in any of the 15 roles he has had, from Killer Elite to Lethal Weapon 4 (in 1998) to a recent episode of the TV mystery series, Monk. He has portrayed a priest, a criminal clan leader, an elder martial arts master, and "a dead Chinese man."