Rosalind Chao

Kim on The O.C. in 2003. She also played Hua Li, Mulan's mother, in the live-action 2020 remake of Mulan.

Rosalind Chao
Chao in 2005
Born	(1957-09-23) 23 September 1957 (age 66) Anaheim, California, U.S.
Education	Pomona College University of Southern California (BA)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1970–present
Spouse	Simon Templeman
Children	2

Rosalind Chao was born in Anaheim, California. Her parents were performers with the Peking opera before they relocated to Anaheim, where they ran a successful pancake restaurant, Chao's Chinese and American Restaurant, across the street from Disneyland. Chao worked there from an early age.

She attended Pomona College in Claremont, California, and then the University of Southern California, where she earned a degree in broadcast journalism in 1978. She worked at Disneyland as an international tour guide, and contemplated pursuing journalism as a career.

Chao's parents were instrumental in her decision to pursue acting. She began acting at the age of five, in the California-based Peking opera traveling company with which her parents were involved. During the summer, they sent her to Taiwan for further acting study and experience.

As a child, she played the daughter of a laundry owner (played by James Hong) on a 1970 episode of Here's Lucy, "Lucy the Laundress".

Deciding not to pursue acting, Chao enrolled in the communications department at the University of Southern California where she earned her degree in journalism. However, after a year as a radio newswriting intern at the CBS-owned Hollywood radio station KNX, she returned to acting.

Chao's breakthrough role was that of Soon-Lee, a South Korean refugee, in the final episodes of the TV series M*A*S*H. Soon-Lee married longtime starring character Maxwell Klinger (Jamie Farr) in the series finale "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen", which aired on February 28, 1983, and was the most-watched U.S. sitcom television episode of all time as of 2021. Chao repeated the role in the M*A*S*H sequel, 1983's AfterMASH, her first role billed at co-star status.

Chao played Japanese exo-botanist Keiko O'Brien on the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In 2010, a preliminary casting memo for The Next Generation from 1987 was published, revealing that Chao was originally considered for the part of Enterprise security chief Tasha Yar.

In August 2018, Chao was cast as Mulan's mother in the 2020 live-action retelling of Mulan. In 2019, she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, citing her contributions to the critically acclaimed films The Joy Luck Club and I Am Sam.

Chao met her husband Simon Templeman while they were working in theatre at the Mark Taper Forum. They have a son and a daughter.

Film

Television

Theatre

Games