Leonard Clarence Strong born 12 August 1908 Salt Lake City Utah d 23 January 1980 Glendale California was a prolific American character actor specialising in playing Asian roles Beginning with Little Tokyo USA in 1942 Strong played a gamut of roles as Japanese Chinese Koreans Thais etc in films such as Dragon Seed 1944Up in Arms 1944 Jack London 1943 Salute to the Marines 1943 Behind the Rising Sun 1943 Night Plane from Chungking 1943 Bombardier 1943Underground Agent 1942 and Manila Calling 1942 He played the Thai interpreter in both Anna and the King of Siam and its musical remake The King and I Strong also appeared in the movie Shane 1953 as homesteader Ernie Wright Strong achieved some pop culture notoriety for his role on television as The Claw on Get Smart He appeared in a seasonfive episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents 1960 The Cure written by horror writer Robert Bloch Set deep in an Amazon jungle Strong plays Luiz a loyal native who speaks broken English and saves his employer an oil explorer from the attempted murder of his supposedly mentally ill and unfaithful wife Something gets lost in the translation when his employer wants Strong to take her to a psychiatrist 200 miles down river and he takes her instead to a native headshrinker The denouement comes when Strong returns alone to the shock of his employer He says I do what you tell me I take her to my people The best headshrinkers in the world Then pulling his employers wifes now shrunken head out of a bag he says Best job in the world Another notable television role was his haunting and mostly silent portrayal of the title character in the original Twilight Zone episode The HitchHiker which is often listed as one of the ten best episodes of the series With his thumb extended seeking a ride and asking Going my way Strong is seen in one of the halfdozen secondslong scenes used at the start of every one of the 30 DVDs in the CBS DVD fiveseason collection The Twilight Zone The Definitive Edition
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