Henry Silva‘s most memorable role was “Chunjin”, a Korean guide and turncoat, in John Frankenheimer‘s The Manchurian Candidate (’62). Silva’s biggest scene was a martial-arts duke-out with Frank Sinatra in the Manhattan apartment of Laurence Harvey‘s “Raymond Shaw”, for whom Chunjin was working for as a servant, cook and driver. (Angela Lansbury, playing Harvey’s malevolent mother, calls him “Chu Chin Chow.”)

Silva, however, was of Sicilian and Spanish descent, so he would have had a tough time playing a Korean under today’s woke theocracy.

During his ’50s and ’60s heyday, Silva also played a Mexican peasant farmer who confronted Marlon Brando in Viva Zapata (’52), a Manhattan heroin dealer in A Hatful of Rain (’57), a generic bad guy in The Bravados (’58), a forest-dwelling Venezuelan in Green Mansions (’59), a Vegas sharpie in Ocean’s 11 (’60), a Native American in Sergeants 3 (’63), a Sicilian assassin in Johnny Cool (’63), a Japanese detective in The Return of Mr. Moto (’65), and an Apache in Five Savage Men (’70).

Silva died two days ago (9.14) at the Motion Picture & Television Fund home in Los Angeles. He was 95. Respect & condolences. Woke fanaticism never touched him, and he lived a bountiful life for that.