Hong Kong Harry

For those of us of a certain age, this was part of a fondly remembered series of adverts featuring Arthur Daley, sorry, George Cole, extolling the virtues of the Leeds Building Society's Liquid Gold account.  They, of course, were launched during the height of Minder's popularity and the resemblance between Arthur Daley and Cole's character here borders on the actionable.  Thanks to UK advertising rules, though, by this time popular TV characters couldn't be used to advertise products.  You could, however, hire the actor known for playing them and get them to play someone as close as copyright infringement would allow to that character.  So, for Liquid Gold,  George Cole exchanges Arthur Daley's trilby and camel hair coat for a flat cap and sheepskin jacket, but he's still clearly some kind of small time wheeler dealer, albeit without a second hand car yard.  Indeed, Cole himself always maintained that while the character he played in these ads wasn't Arthur Daley, he was clearly a close relative.  

This particular entry in the series has always stuck in my memory because of the presence of 'Hong Kong Harry' - not because of the casual racism inherent in the character name and the 'Velly solly' comment by Cole's character, but rather because he was played by another very recognisable actor.  Well, recognisable to those of us who watched Gerry Anderson's live action TV series.  Anthony Chinn was very busy in the seventies, regularly appearing in UFO as an alien and sometimes as a SHADO operative.  He also had a recurring role in The Protectors, as Nyree Dawn Porter's chauffeur-cum-bodyguard.  Along with Burt Kwouk, he was one of the stock actors that UK casting director's inevitably turned to when they wanted to cast Chinese or Japanese roles.  In reality, Chinn came from Guyana and was of mixed Chinese and Brazilian parentage.  Never a star, but ever present in British films and TV up until his death in 2000, he even notched up appearances in four Bond movies, his most prominent being in 1985's View To a Kill, where he played a Taiwanese businessman (possibly a close relative to Hong Kong Harry), who gets dropped out of Max Zorin's airship.  He also memorably appeared with George Cole in an episode of Minder, playing a jury member who constantly beguiles Arthur Daley (who has secured the position of foreman of the jury) with his enigmatic and nonsensical proverbs.  So there you have it - another unsung stalwart of British TV and film, immortalised in a classic commercial.