A Chinese-American actor who played supporting roles in films for decades had a secret past as a San Francisco gangster, his niece revealed in a new podcast.
Galen Yuen, who died in 2015, established himself as a supporting actor in the 1980s when he appeared alongside greats such as Arnold Schwarzenegger.
But before he became an actor, Yuen was an established member of the Suey Sing gang, which operated in Chinatown, delivered sex workers and carried a gun.
During this period of his life, in the 1960s, Yuen was battling drug addiction and went to prison when he became involved in a life of crime.
The late actor’s unknown past has recently gained new attention after his niece, journalist Maya Lin Sugarman, started a podcast about his life.
Galen Yuen had established himself as a supporting actor and even occasionally wrote screenplays over the course of his film career
Born in Oakland in 1952 to a Chinese immigrant family, as a teenager he joined the street gangs of the era when criminal activity was rampant in the Bay Area.
According to his niece, Yuen was said to have acted as a pimp and was known for starting fights and using weapons to extort money from people.
After years of gang activity, Yuen was in prison in the early 1970s, and the Suey Sing disbanded after one of its leaders was deported.
According to The San Francisco Standard, gang activity in Chinatown is believed to have been largely suppressed following the arrest of Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow a decade ago.
Despite this belief, the Standard says the Suey Sing, Hop Sing, Hip Sing, Bing Kong and Chee Kung gangs are still prominent in the area.
After his release from prison, Yuen did not go to college but instead found a job at an auto repair shop while living with his mother in Oakland.
In 1985, Yuen was watching the soap opera General Hospital when he noticed that the show’s storylines occasionally involved Asian Americans.
This realization led him to start a new life in Hollywood and moved to Los Angeles in search of a new life.
As a teenager, he joined street gangs from the era when criminal activity was rampant in the Bay Area’s Chinatowns
In the words of his sisters, he moved to the city to “try a new start” and that he was “running away from something.”
Sugarman said her late uncle was confident that he could be more authentic than other actors on the screen at the time because he lived the life.
She said: “And he realized, ‘Wait, like everything I just went through, I could do that on screen.’
When he moved to LA in 1985, he launched his new career and starred in 26 different television and film productions, according to his IMDB profile.
Although most of his roles were minor roles, he appeared alongside major Hollywood names, including Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop.
Frustrated by his constantly smaller roles in films, he began writing screenplays to give himself more opportunities.
His dream became reality in 1998 when the crime film “Crazy Six” was created from a script he had written.
Starring Rob Lowe, Burt Reynolds, Ice-T and Mario Van Peebles, the film is set in a part of Eastern Europe after the fall of communism.
Galen Yuen and Werner Herzog in September 2005 on the set of Herzog’s film Rescue Dawn
After the film was glossed over, Yuen decided to use the tenacity that made him an effective criminal to help Asian Americans in the industry.
Yuen founded the agency Asian Talent Force and tried to negotiate better roles and finances for other Asian Americans.
He then wrote “Riot,” a four-part TV movie about the unrest that followed the Rodney King verdict in 1992.
Later in his career, he also starred alongside Christian Bale in Rescue Dawn, directed by Werner Herzog.
Yuen never married, had no children, and died of a blood infection in 2015.