Anna May Wong

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  • #166150
    Avatar of OldiesloverOldieslover
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    Anna May Wong was the first Chinese-American movie star. Personally, I believe she was not human. She was an actually Goddess who came to life. Anna May was born Wong Liu Tsong on January 3, 1905, in Los Angeles, California, to laundryman Wong Sam Sing and his wife, Lee Gon Toy. A third-generation American, she managed to have a substantial acting career during a deeply racist time when the taboo against miscegenation meant that Caucasian actresses were cast as “Oriental” women in lead parts opposite Caucasian leading men. I’ll add more about her as I post more. She is a must for all those who love Asian women:

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    #166155
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    She was born on Flower Street in downtown Los Angeles in an integrated neighborhood dominated by Irish and Germans, one block from Chinatown, where her father ran the Sam Kee Laundry.

    The Wong family moved back to Chinatown two years after Liu Tsong’s birth, but in 1910 they uprooted themselves, moving to a nearby Figueroa Street neighborhood where they had Mexican and East European neighbors. Los Angeles’ Chinatown already was teeming with movie shoots when she was a girl. She would haunt the neighborhood nickelodeons, having become enraptured with the early “flickers.” Though her traditional father strongly disapproved of his daughter’s cinephilia, as it deflected her from scholastic pursuits, there was little he could do about it, as Liu was determined to be an actress.

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    #166170
    Avatar of OldiesloverOldieslover
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    The film industry was in the midst of relocating from the East Coast to the West, and Hollywood was booming. Liu Tsong would haunt movie shoots as she had earlier haunted the nickelodeons. Her favorite stars were Pearl White, of The Perils of Pauline (1914) serial fame, and White’s leading man, Crane Wilbur. She was also fond of Ruth Roland.

    Educated at a Chinese-language school in Chinatown, she would skip school to watch film shoots in her neighborhood. She made tip money from delivering laundry for her father, which she spent on going to the movies. Her father, if he discovered she had gone to the movies during school hours, would spank her with a bamboo stick. Around the time she was nine years old, she began begging filmmakers for parts, behavior that got her dubbed “C.C.C.” for “curious Chinese child.”

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    #166184
    Avatar of OldiesloverOldieslover
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    Liu Tsong’s first film role was as an uncredited extra in Metro Pictures’ The Red Lantern (1919), starring Alla Nazimova as a Eurasian woman who falls in love with an American missionary. The film included scenes shot in Chinatown. The part was obtained for her by a friend of her father’s (without his knowledge) who worked in the movie industry. Retaining the family surname “Wong” and the English-language “Christian” name bestowed on her by her parents, Liu Tsong Americanized herself as “Anna May Wong” for the movie industry, though she would not receive an on-screen credit for another two years.

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    #166360
    Avatar of Dr. LeeDr. Lee
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    The story of Anna’s life is very interesting—she was truly groundbreaking. She could be said to be the one who started it all for admirers of Asian women in the west. As such, she is possibly the most historically important Asian siren ever.

    Dr. Lee
    Asian Sirens' admin, moderator, editor, tech guy, designer…

    #166366
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    I agree Doc. I’ve researched her quite a bit over the years including several books. More I found out about her the more I liked her. I’ve watched all her movies, a few several times.

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    #166397
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    The very young Anna May Wong appeared in bit parts in movies starring Priscilla Dean, Colleen Moore and the Japanese-born Sessue Hayakawa, the first Asian star of American movies. Due to her father’s demands, she had an adult guardian at the studio, and would be locked in her dressing room between scenes if she was the only Asian in the cast. Initially balancing school work and her budding film career, she eventually dropped out of Los Angeles High School to pursue acting full time. She was aided by the fact that, though still a teenager, she looked more mature than her real age.

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    #166402
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    Director Marshall Neilan cast the teenage Anna May in a bit part in his film Dinty (1920), then gave her her first credited role in the “Hop” sequence of Bits of Life (1921), the American movie industry’s first anthology film. In “Hop” Wong played Toy Ling, the abused wife of Lon Chaney’s character Chin Gow, which the Man of a Thousand Faces played in Chinese drag. She next appeared in support of John Gilbert in Fox’s Shame (1921) before being cast in her first major role at the age of 17, the lead in The Toll of the Sea (1922). She played Lotus Flower in this adaptation of the opera “Madame Butterfly,” which moved the action from Japan to China. “The Toll of the Sea” was the first feature film shot entirely in Technicolor’s two-strip color process.

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    #166407
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    By Anna May appearing top-billed in “The Toll Of The Sea,” a romantic melodrama, Anna became the first native-born Asian performer to star in a major Hollywood movie. This may sound strange but back in those days this was a major breakthrough in American cinema. The fourth picture here is Frances Dade & Anna May Wong for DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON (1931)

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    #166412
    Avatar of OldiesloverOldieslover
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    Most portrayals of Asian women before Anna May’s arrival were done by Caucasian actresses in “yellow-face,” such as the 1915 Madame Butterfly (1915) starring “America’s Sweetheart” Mary Pickford in the title role. In “The Toll of the Sea,” Anna May’s character perpetuates the stereotype of the Asian “lotus blossom,” a self-sacrificial woman who surrenders her life for the love of a Caucasian man. The film was a hit, and it showcased Wong in a preternaturally mature and restrained performance. This breakthrough should have launched Anna May Wong as a star, but for one thing: She was Chinese in a country that excluded (by law) Chinese from emigrating to the US, that forbade (by law) Chinese from marrying Caucasians and that generally excluded (by law or otherwise) Chinese from the culture at large, except for bit roles as heavies in the national consciousness. The fourth picture here is Anna May with a rising Latin star named Anthony Quinn.

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