Keone Joseph Young (born September 6, 1947) is an American character actor. His father is Chinese and his mother is Japanese. He voiced in Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, The Mighty B, American Dragon and Codename: Kids Next Door.
Career
He has been prolific in his character work and has made numerous guest appearances on such varied television series as Diff'rent Strokes, The Golden Girls, Murphy Brown, Mad About You, Family Matters, Futurama, The Simpsons, Alias, JAG, The Steve Harvey Show, Zeke and Luther, Shake It Up: Made In Japan and on the daytime soaps The Young and the Restless and Generations. He also portrayed the bodyguard of the Ancient One (Keye Luke) during the Asian Quarter storyline on General Hospital.
Young played Dr. Michael Kwan on the short-lived multi-ethnic medical drama Kay O'Brien, which aired in the fall of 1986 on CBS. Despite the fact that the network had high hopes for the series, just 9 of 13 episodes were aired. He was also a semi-regular on the HBO series Deadwood as Mr. Wu and played Henry Lin's Uncle on the FX series Sons of Anarchy. He also played Mr. Wu, unrelated to the Deadwood character, in the movie Men in Black 3. He also played the role of Ellison Onizuka In the TV film Challenger.
Young has many voice-over credits as well: Grandpa in American Dragon: Jake Long, Kaz in Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, Mr. Sanban in Codename: Kids Next Door, the Firebending master Jeong Jeong in the Asian-influenced Avatar: The Last Airbender, Storm Shadow in the Sunbow G.I. Joe animated series, the Hard Master in G.I. Joe: Renegades, Mr. Wu on Nickelodeon's show The Mighty B!, Babaram on Surf Ninjas Marshall Kai Ti Chang in Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, Silver Samurai in X-Men: The Official Game and Wolverine and the X-Men, Sensei in Young Justice, Chen Stormstout in the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria expansion and Heroes of the Storm by Blizzard Entertainment, and Commander Sato in Star Wars Rebels.
Young also has several Star Trek links: He played Buck Bokai, a famous baseball player in the 24th century in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "If Wishes Were Horses". He also played Hoshi Sato's father in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Vanishing Point". Young appeared as Governor Ho in the movie North starring Elijah Wood.
In theatre, Young has had a long history with the Asian American theatre company, East West Players, in Los Angeles, where he not only performed but often served as producer. He voiced Lord Qin in Mulan II.
In 2013, Young joined the cast of HBO's True Blood as Dr. Hido Takahashi, the man responsible for inventing the titular blood substitute.
Characters he voiced in Samurai Jack
- The Emperor
- The Bandit leader (Episode XCIV)
- Buddhist Monk (Episode XCVIII)