Before They Were Stars: James Hong in a Crest Toothpaste Commercial

One of my all-time favourite character actors is James Hong, whose career stretches all the way back to the 1950s. Hong is probably best known for his roles as Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China and the weird maitre’d in the “Chinese Restaurant” episode of Seinfeld (“Cartwright!”), but he has built up one of the largest filmographies of all time with nearly 400 film, television and video game credits to his name and even at age 85, Hong has shown no signs of slowing down. Since the guy has done pretty much everything, it probably comes as no surprise that he once did a commercial for Crest Toothpaste during the 1960s. Incidentally, the little girl playing his daughter in this ad is Rosalind Chao, who went on to have a pretty successful career herself.