1934 that he could afford to attend the University of Southern California. His father told him if he really wanted to be an actor, he had to be the best actor he could and convinced him to take acting and cinematography courses. While still a student, he appeared in a stage production of Merrily We Roll Along, which toured the western United States. Ahn served as president of the USC Cosmopolitan Club, was chairman of the All University Committee on International Relations and was assistant to the dean of male students as advisor for foreign student affairs. He organized visits by foreign dignitaries, including Princess Der Ling of China, Indian journalist Chaman Lal and archeologist-explorer Robert B. Stacey-Judd. After completing his second year, however, Ahn dropped out to act full-time. Career Ahn's first film was A Scream in the Night in 1935. He appeared in the Bing Crosby film Anything Goes, though the director Lewis Milestone had initially rejected him because his English was too good for the part. His first credited roles came in 1936 in The General Died at Dawn and Stowaway, opposite Shirley Temple. He starred opposite Anna May Wong in Daughter of Shanghai (1937) and King of Chinatown (1939), becoming the first self-represented on-screen Asian American romantic couple of sound-era Hollywood cinema. During World War II, Ahn often played Japanese villains in war films. Mistakenly thought to be Japanese, he received several death threats. He was frequently cast in these roles opposite Chinese-American actor Richard Loo. He enlisted in the United States Army and served in the Special Services as an entertainer. He was discharged early because of an injured ankle and returned to making films. Ahn's role as a conflicted Ilbongye Hangugin (Korean of Japanese descent) doctor in the 1945 Pearl Buck adaptation China Sky is notable as one of the first depictions of a Korean character in a major Hollywood film. Ahn appeared in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, Around the World in Eighty Days, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Paradise, Hawaiian Style, with Elvis Presley. He played Korean characters in Korean War movies such as Battle Circus (1953) and Battle Hymn (1956). After traveling to South Korea in the 1950s, Ahn considered emigrating there and acting in Korean films, but decided against it due to his unusual idiolect. Having learned Korean mostly from his mother, who was from the Northern part of the peninsula