Gary “Gedde” Watanabe is a Japanese-American actor. He was born on June 26, 1955. You might know him as the voice of Ling in the animated movie Mulan (1998) and its sequel Mulan II (2004). He also played Long Duk Dong in the movie Sixteen Candles (1984) and Takahara “Kaz” Kazihiro in Gung Ho (1986). Additionally, he was Nurse Yosh Takata in the NBC medical drama ER from 1997 to 2003. He was part of the original cast of the Stephen Sondheim musical Pacific Overtures.
Gary grew up in Ogden, Utah, in a Japanese-American family. His mother worked as a seamstress at the Utah Tailoring Company. In high school, he acted and sang in several plays. After graduating, he moved to San Francisco, where he worked as a street musician and continued to improve his acting skills.
In 1976, Gary was in the original Broadway cast of Pacific Overtures, playing the roles of Priest, Girl, and The Boy. Since then, he has been in many movies and TV shows, starting with The Long Island Four in 1980.
Most of his roles show caricatured East Asians with strong accents, even though he doesn’t speak Japanese. He had a leading role in the movie Gung Ho and its TV spinoff. In the 1989 movie UHF, he played Kuni, a karate instructor and host of a TV game show called Wheel of Fish. He also appeared on Sesame Street from 1988 to 1991 as Hiroshi and had a recurring role as the gay nurse Yoshi Takata on the TV drama ER from 1997 to 2003.
During the ’90s, Gary studied acting in Hollywood, California. He voiced various Japanese characters on The Simpsons. In 1998, he voiced Ling in the Disney movie Mulan and did it again for the 2004 sequel Mulan II and the 2005 video game Kingdom Hearts II.