David Carradine

 David Carradine

David Carradine is best known for his roles as Kwai Chang Caine in the 1970s television series Kung Fu (as well as the sequels in the 1980s and 1990s), 'Big' Bill Shelly in Martin Scorsese's Boxcar Bertha (1972), folksinger Woody Guthrie in Bound for Glory (1976), Abel Rosenberg in Ingmar Bergman's The Serpent's Egg (1977), and as Bill in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill (2003,2004).

Other notable roles include the lead in Shane (the 1966 television series based upon the 1949 novel of the same name) and a gunslinger in Taggart, a 1964 western film based on a novel by Louis L'Amour. More recently, he portrayed Tempus on the television series Charmed, Conrad in the television series Alias. He currently appears as the host of Wild West Tech on the History Channel, taking over the duties from his brother Keith.

David Carradine is also known for producing and starring in several exercise videos teaching the martial arts of Tai chi and Qi Gong exercises. Carradine actually had no knowledge of martial arts prior to starring in the series Kung Fu, but developed an interest in it after this experience and has since become an avid practitioner.

David Carradine also narrated the PBS anthropology series "Faces of Culture".

Some scholars have referred to Carradine's role in Kung Fu as an example of a modern Yellowface actor.

Carradine's role on Kung Fu (1972-1975) was originally promised and show concept (originally tentatively titled "the Warrior") was created by Jeet Kune Do creator and martial arts legend Bruce Lee. However the studio purportedly recast the part with Carradine because of their belief that a Chinese leading man would not be embraced by an early 1970s American TV audience.

The original show was to take place in China (this is when Bruce Lee was considered). The studio spin was that the producers decided they wanted the show to take place in America, so the idea was sought to have the main character be half white. This way the racist townsfolk and/or bad guys wouldn't quite know if he were Chinese or not. Carradine's character Kwai Chang Caine was half white (his father was American) and the studio claimed that it would have been very difficult to believe that a full blooded Chinese man would be able to walk from town to town in the American West in the 1800s. This is despite the fact that many of the shows centered around the bigotry that Caine faced being Chinese the characters in the series obviously knew that Caine was Chinese and he was forced to use his then unknown Kung Fu skills to defend himself and others from the various antagonists and situations presented on the show.