Ethnicity:
Khigh was of English, Egyptian, and Sudanese ancestry.
Khigh Dhiegh was born on August 25, 1910, in Spring Lake, New Jersey, United States. He had changed his name from Kenneth Dickerson.
Dhiegh had a doctorate in theology.
In his early career, Dhiegh worked at his mother's bookstore, sold handmade pipes, and operated a talent agency. His interest in both theater and Chinese culture led him to become a character actor, and his work in the Broadway play Jungle of Cities earned him an Obie Award in 1961. The success of this role led him to his part in Hawaii Five-O in which he played the villain Wo Fat from 1968 to 1980.
He also played a Chinese man in the 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate and in the short-lived 1975 series Khan, and he assumed a Japanese part in the television series Noble House (1988).
As his acting career waned in the 1970s, Dhiegh continued to act occasionally while pursuing other interests. He taught the philosophy of theater at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1969 and from 1972 to 1976, and, beginning in 1975, he was rector of the Taoist Sanctuary (present-day Taoist Institute) in North Hollywood, California, and founder of Los Angeles's I Ching Studies Institute.
Dhiegh was the author of The Eleventh Wing: An Exposition on the Dynamics of I Ching for Now (1973) and edited Ching: Taoist Book of Days (1975-1980) and Tao and Change (1972-1977).
Khigh Dhiegh distinguished himself as an actor as well as an author. A generation of television viewers knew him as an evil master criminal Wo Fat who repeatedly eluded Steve McGarrett, head of a law enforcement organization known as Five-O.
In 1961 he won an Obie Award for his Broadway role in Jungle of Cities. He was the founder of the Taoist Sanctuary (present-day Taoist Institute) in Hollywood, California.
(Desperate to escape his dreary, dead-end life, aging bank...)
1966(When Whip Hoxworth, a seafarer, returns to the island he ...)
1970Khigh Dhiegh was interested in Taoist philosophy.
Khigh Dhiegh was very much interested in Chinese culture and mystique. He learned the Chinese language and traditions and was interested in I Ching, the old Chinese oracle and consultation.
Khigh Dhiegh was married to Mary Dickerson. They had three children, Kenneth Dickerson Jr., Kathleen Dickerson, and Letitia Dickerson.
