Peter Kwong, a martial artist and actor who played one of the Three Storms in Big Trouble in Little China and a henchman in The Golden Child during a prolific acting career and was active in actors union politics and the movie and TV academy leadership, has died. He was 73.
His reps told Deadline that Kwong died overnight Tuesday in his sleep.
Born on April 9, 1952, Kwong began his screen career in the mid-1970s with guest shots on such TV series as Wonder Woman and Black Sheep Squadron and into the ’80s with Cagney & Lacey, Bret Maverick, The Greatest American Hero, Little House on the Prairie, Dynasty, The A-Team, Miami Vice, 227, St. Elsewhere, Matt Houston and others.
He also had bit parts in features but would land perhaps his most famous role by mid-decade.
Kwong was cast as Rain, one of the Three Storms, in John Carpenter’s 1986 action-adventure tale Big Trouble in Little China, starring Kurt Russell and Kim Cattrall. That same year he appeared on the big screen in Never Too Young to Die, starring John Stamos and Vanity, and in the Eddie Murphy starrer The Golden Child, playing restaurant owner and henchman Tommy Tong.
Training with the East/West Players, Groundlings and other groups, Kwong would continue to work regularly in films and TV shows in the 2020s. Among his silver-screen credits are The Presidio, Gleaming the Cube, I’ll Do Anything, Paper Dragons and Cooties. His numerous TV guest roles also included such popular shows as General Hospital, JAG, My Wife and Kids, The Wayans Brothers, Sisters, Drake & Josh, Lethal Weapon and King of the Hill.
“He had a wonderful life and career,” Kwong longtime friend Peter R.J. Deyell told Deadline. “I watched him fight for the things he believed in, and I championed him for that. At the TV Academy, we were both very active and sometimes joked about being in the Pin Club as we always wore our pins. He was always a gentleman and willing to help.”
Check out Kwong’s demo reel circa 2009 here:
Kwong also was an accomplished martial artist, working in Northern Shaolin kung fu, Chinese kata and with weapons including swords, staffs, spears and nunchaku. Dancing was another specialty — from ballroom and martial arts fusion to disco and breaking. Friends also cited his impressive pop-locking skills.
Along with his nearly 50-year acting career, Kwong was active in Hollywood industry politics for decades. He served on the SAG National Board of Directors for more than 10 years and was on the AFTRA National Board of Directors. He also did a four-year stint on the Television Academy Board of Governors and was a member of the Actors Branch Executive Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, among other roles. Kwong ran for the merged SAG-AFTRA’s National Board and L.A. Local Board in 2017.
He also was an activist against anti-Asian stereotyping in Hollywood. In 2016, Kwong was among about two dozen signatories on a letter to AMPAS decrying jokes made at the expense of Asians during the Oscars that year.
“I was there at the Academy Awards, and I was shocked because [Academy President] Cheryl Boone-Isaacs went up and talked about diversity and then right after that comes the jokes from Chris Rock and Sacha Baron Cohen,” Kwong told Deadline at the time. “Some people have the attitude, ‘Why can’t you have a sense of humor?’ and ‘in humor there are no boundaries.’ It’s because it gives people permission to not only continue it but to escalate it as well.”
Kwong received the Asian World Film Festival’s 2023 Snow Leopard Award for outstanding cinematic achievement.
Information about survivors and a memorial service was incomplete.
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