Philip Ahn’s acting career began in 1936. Several years earlier, as Philip Ahn related in a 1967 Los Angeles Times article, he drove his high school friend, Chinese American actor Anna May Wong to the studio in her car since she had not learned how to drive. She was working on “The Thief of Bagdad” (1924), a film with Douglas Fairbanks. According to the later account, Fairbanks saw Ahn waiting in the car and insisted he do a screen test. Ahn remembers, “I’ll never forget that day…Still wearing my make-up, I proudly came home to tell mother the great news. ‘No son of mine is going to get mixed up with those awful people,’ she shouted. I wasn’t allowed out the house for the next three days.” Philip Ahn went on to have 270 acting credits, working steadily from the late 1930s, appearing in several films, and later, television shows, each year. During this period, he played primarily supporting roles in highly successful films, including “The General Died at Dawn” (1936), “The Big Hangover” (1953), “The Left Hand of God” (1955) and “Battle Hymn” (1957).

The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 prohibited miscegenation between White and Black characters, though in practice, this also applied to other ethnic minorities. Given the limits on presenting interracial couples in movies, Ahn landed his first leading role in 1937 opposite Anna May Wong in “Daughter of Shanghai.” The pair would reunite in “King of Chinatown” in 1939. Through his acting roles, Ahn became a very recognizable figure. Many of the film production studios used his image on their promotional movie posters. Philip Ahn also appeared in television shows, most notably co-starring as Master Kan on the show “Kung Fu” from 1972-1975.

Philip Ahn’s relegation primarily to supporting roles is illustrative of the film industry’s long history of institutional racism. One manifestation of that racism includes casting Caucasian actors in lead roles in “yellowface” to portray characters of Asian ancestry, a tradition dating to early forms of minstrelsy when Caucasian actors would change their skin tone and appearance through makeup, prosthetics, or costumery to appear Asian. In many instances, these yellowface characters reinforced negative stereotypes of Asians. For example, Peter Lorre was cast as the lead in the 1937 film, “Think Fast, Mr. Moto,” one of Philip Ahn’s early films. The converse was never true; actors of Asian ancestry, including Philip Ahn, were never cast in non-Asian roles. Toward the end of his life, in 1976, Philip Ahn was part of a protest of over 100 Asian American actors. As quoted in the Los Angeles Times, he commented that “An Irishman can play an Italian or a Frenchman can play an American…Suddenly…after working 40 years in the industry, I find I am only allowed to play Korean (roles).”