{"id":28904,"date":"2022-03-07T02:04:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T02:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=28904"},"modified":"2022-03-08T02:10:23","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T02:10:23","slug":"after-hollywood-thwarted-anna-may-wong-the-actress-took-matters-into-her-own-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/after-hollywood-thwarted-anna-may-wong-the-actress-took-matters-into-her-own-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"After Hollywood thwarted Anna May Wong, the actress took matters into her own hands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Shirley J. Lim<\/a>, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Mint will, over the next four years, issue quarters featuring the likenesses of American women who contributed to \u201cthe development and history of our country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first batch of the American Women Quarters Program<\/a>, announced in January 2022, includes astronaut Sally Ride and poet Maya Angelou.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One name on the list might be less familiar to some Americans: Chinese American actress Anna May Wong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Back<\/a>
Anna May Wong will appear on the back of a quarter as part of the U.S. Mint\u2019s American Women Quarters Program. U.S. Mint via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As someone who has written a biography on Wong<\/a>, I was delighted to provide the mint with Wong\u2019s backstory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The subject of renewed attention in recent years, Wong is often referred to as a Hollywood star \u2013 in fact, the U.S. Treasury describes her as \u201cthe first Chinese American film star in Hollywood.\u201d And she certainly did dazzle in her roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to me, this characterization diminishes her chief accomplishment: her capacity for reinvention. Hollywood continually stymied her ambitions. And yet out of the ashes of rejection, she persevered, becoming an Australian vaudeville chanteuse, a British theatrical luminary, a B-film pulp diva and an American television celebrity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A star is born<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Born just outside of Los Angeles\u2019 Chinatown in 1905, Wong grew up witnessing movies being made all around her. She dreamed of one day becoming a leading lady.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cutting classes in order to beg directors for roles, Wong began her career as an extra in Alla Nazimova\u2019s 1919 classic film about China\u2019s Boxer Rebellion, \u201cThe Red Lantern<\/a>.\u201d In 1922, at the age of 17, Wong landed her first starring role in \u201cThe Toll of the Sea<\/a>,\u201d playing a character based on Madame Butterfly<\/a>. Her performance was well received, and she went on to be cast as the Mongol slave in the 1924 hit film \u201cThe Thief of Bagdad<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, she quickly hit a wall in an era when it was common to cast white actors in yellowface<\/a> \u2013 having them tape their eyes, wear makeup and assume exaggerated accents and gestures \u2013 to play Asian characters. (This practice would continue for decades: In 1961, director Blake Edwards egregiously cast Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in \u201cBreakfast at Tiffany\u2019s,\u201d and as recently as 2016, Emma Stone was controversially cast<\/a> as a part-Chinese, part-Hawaiian character in \u201cAloha.\u201d) Wong would go on to land roles playing unnamed minor characters in the 1927 film \u201cOld San Francisco<\/a>\u201d and \u201cAcross to Singapore<\/a>,\u201d which premiered a year later. But anything outside of typecast roles seemed out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Woman
In \u2018Daughter of the Dragon,\u2019 Anna May Wong starred alongside Warner Oland, a Swedish-American actor who often appeared in yellowface. LMPC\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In some ways, her career mirrored that of the great Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa<\/a>, who had forged a path for people of Asian Pacific descent in Hollywood. Hayakawa became a star through his headlining role in the 1915 Lasky-Famous Players film, \u201cThe Cheat<\/a>.\u201d However, as anti-Japanese sentiment increased in the U.S.<\/a>, his roles dried up. By 1922, he had left Hollywood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

European fame<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Some actresses would have accepted their lot, grateful for the chance to simply appear in films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not Wong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1928, fed up with a lack of opportunities in Hollywood, she packed her bags and sailed to Europe, where she became a global star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Woman
Wong poses in front of the H\u00f4tel de Crillon in Paris in 1935. Bettmann\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From 1928 to 1934 she made a series of movies for Germany\u2019s Universum-Film Aktiengeselleschaft, and found work with other leading studios such as France\u2019s Gaumont and Associated Talking Pictures in the U.K. She impressed in her roles, attracting the attention of luminaries such as the German intellectual Walter Benjamin<\/a>, British actor Laurence Olivier<\/a>, German actress Marlene Dietrich<\/a> and African American actor Paul Robeson<\/a>. In Europe, Wong joined the ranks of African American artists such as Robeson, Josephine Baker<\/a> and Langston Hughes<\/a>, who, frustrated by segregation in the U.S., had left the country and found adulation in Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When film work wasn\u2019t forthcoming, Wong turned to vaudeville. In 1934, she embarked on a European tour, where she sang, danced and acted before enthralled audiences in cities large and small, from Madrid to G\u00f6teborg, Sweden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wong\u2019s revue showcased her chameleonlike powers to transform herself. In G\u00f6teborg, for example, she performed eight numbers that included the Chinese folk song \u201cJasmine Flower<\/a>\u201d and the contemporary French hit \u201cParlez-moi d\u2019Amour<\/a>.\u201d Inhabiting a variety of roles and races, she seamlessly shifted from speaking Chinese to French, from portraying a folk singer to appearing as a tuxedo-clad nightclub siren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wong decides to do it on her own<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What I love about Wong is that even as Hollywood thwarted her time and again, she continued creating her own opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though she spent years in Europe, Wong continued to audition for American roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1937, she tried out for the leading role in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer\u2019s \u201cThe Good Earth<\/a>.\u201d After she was rejected, she decided that if she couldn\u2019t star in a movie, she would simply make one of her own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She took her one and only trip to China, documenting the experience. Her charming short film showed numerous activities, including female impersonators teaching Wong how to enact Chinese female roles, a trip to the Western Hills, and a visit to the family\u2019s ancestral village. At a time when the number of prominent female directors in Hollywood could be counted on one hand, it was a remarkable feat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation\u2019s newsletters to understand the world.<\/em> Sign up today<\/a>.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two decades later, the film would air on ABC. By that time, Wong had established herself as a TV star by playing a gallery owner-cum-detective who traveled the globe solving crimes in \u201cThe Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong<\/a>.\u201d It was the first television series to feature an Asian Pacific American lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time Wong died on February 3, 1961, she had left a legacy of more than 50 films, numerous Broadway and vaudeville shows, and a television series. Equally important is how she became a global celebrity despite being shut out from Hollywood\u2019s A-list leading roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a story of tenacity and determination that can inspire all who want to see images of people of color reflected back to them on screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shirley J. Lim<\/a>, Associate Professor of History, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shirley J. Lim, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York) The U.S. Mint will, over the next four years, issue quarters featuring the likenesses of American women who contributed to \u201cthe development and history of our country.\u201d The first batch of the American Women Quarters Program, announced in January 2022, includes astronaut Sally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":28905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,8025],"tags":[11458,6236,6865,335,1409,11459,2031,528,1538,2496,536,11460],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28904"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28904"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28906,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28904\/revisions\/28906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}