Anna May Wong (January 3, 1905 – February 3, 1961) was the first Chinese American movie star, and the first Asian American actress to gain international recognition. Her long and varied career spanned both silent and sound film, television, stage and radio.Born near the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles to second-generation Chinese-American parents, Wong became infatuated with the movies and began acting in films at an early age. During the silent film era, she acted in The Toll of the Sea (1922), one of the first movies made in color and Douglas Fairbanks' The Thief of Bagdad (1924). Wong became a fashion icon and by 1924 had achieved international stardom. Frustrated by the stereotypical supporting roles she reluctantly played in Hollywood, Wong left for Europe in the late 1920s, where she starred in several notable plays and films, among them Piccadilly (1929). She spent the first half of the 1930s traveling between the United States and Europe for film and stage work. Wong was featured in films of the early sound era, such as Daughter of the Dragon (1931) and Daughter of Shanghai (1937) and with Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express (1932).In 1935 Wong was dealt the most severe disappointment of her career, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer refused to consider her for the leading role of the Chinese character O-Lan in the film version of Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth, choosing instead the German actress Luise Rainer to play the leading role. Wong spent the next year touring China, visiting her family's ancestral village and studying Chinese culture. In the late 1930s, she starred in several B movies for Paramount Pictures, portraying Chinese Americans in a positive light. She paid less attention to her film career during World War II, when she devoted her time and money to helping the Chinese cause against Japan. Wong returned to the public eye in the 1950s in several television appearances as well as her own series in 1951, The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, the first U.S. television show starring an Asian-American series lead. She had been planning to return to film in Flower Drum Song when she died in 1961, at the age of 56.For decades after her death, Wong was remembered principally for the stereotypical "Dragon Lady" and demure "Butterfly" roles that she was often given. Her life and career were re-evaluated in the years around the centennial of her birth, in three major literary works and film retrospectives. Interest in her life story continues and another biography, Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story, was published in 2009.
I see no reason why Chinese and English people should not kiss on the screen, even though I prefer not to.
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Fact
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Has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame dedicated in 1960 located on 1708 Vine Street Hollywood, CA. Also there is a Life Size statue of her part of the Four Ladies Hollywood Gazebo which also features other actresses of color including Dorothy Dandridge. It is located at the Western Part of the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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Converted her Santa Monica, CA home into several apartments and titled them "Moongate Apartments" and was the manager from the late 1940's until 1956 when she moved in with her brother Richard.
3
Desperately wanted the role of O-Lan in the film the Good Earth. However due to her being ethnically Chinese and the male lead Paul Muni being Caucasian, she was turned down for the part. She was given an opportunity to play Lotus a Chinese peasant girl, but turned it down.
It is believed by some that Wong never kissed her leading man on the lips on screen but she does share just such a kiss with John Loder in Java Head (1934). Such a scene was filmed for her 1929 film "The Road to Dishonour" with John Longden but was cut by censors who felt that moviegoers might be offended by an interracial kiss. Also, in "Lady from Chungking" (1942), Harold Huber, a caucasian, playing a Japanese General, kisses her, on the lips, as the scene fades, in the 63rd minute of the film.
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Starred in the first full length color movie, "Toll of the Sea" in 1922.
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Her younger sister Mary Wong committed suicide by hanging herself in her garage in Los Angeles on July 15, 1940 at age 30. She had a bit part in the film The Good Earth (1937).
8
Her mother was struck by a car and died several days later.
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Spoke fluent French and German along with her native English and Chinese.
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In the 1930s she toured in vaudeville and with her own one-woman show, traveling through Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries. In London, she had a widely praised nightclub engagement at the Embassy Club, where she sang and danced.
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The second of seven children, her siblings were Richard, Lulu, James, Frank, Roger and Mary. Mary once served as Anna's film understudy but died suddenly in early adulthood. Her father disapproved of Anna's acting career, which caused a severe strain in their relationship. Following Anna's mother's death in a car accident in 1931, they grew even further apart. Anna's will disinherited her father.
Was thought to be buried in an unmarked grave in Angelus Rosedale Cemetary in Los Angeles. However it turns out she was buried under her Chinese name beside her mother and sister in a family plot.
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Enjoyed golfing, skiing, and horseback riding in her spare time.
16
In 1960, actor Anthony Quinn co-starred with Anna in her last film, Portrait in Black (1960). Quinn also starred as an Inuit in Nicholas Ray's The Savage Innocents (1960). Co-starring with him was actress Marie Yang, who in this film was for some reason billed as Anna May Wong! It may be the only instance ever of an actor appearing with two actresses of the same name in the same year.
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Anna attended Hollywood High School, where she became a photographer's model.
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Anna once had an affair with noted silent film director Marshall Neilan. Most of her romances tended towards Caucasian men, as many Chinese men looked down on actresses as prostitutes.
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In 1956 Anna received a long-deferred chance to play a role she lost out on in 1940s Hollywood. Playing the Asian blackmailer in W. Somerset Maugham's "The Letter" on TV, the director of the show was none other than William Wyler, who had originally nixed the idea of her playing the role in the Bette Davis classic film version of The Letter (1940). The part instead went to non-Asian Gale Sondergaard.
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According to the British Film Institute biography, her birth name was Luong Liu Tsong.
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She was more often cast in "sinister oriental" roles only after actresses like Nita Naldi were forced out of motion pictures owing to the coming of sound.
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Her Chinese name, Wong Liu Tsong in Cantonese, means "Willow Frosted, Yellow" (according to the Western custom) or "Yellow, Willow Frosted"(according to the Chinese custom).
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