Anna May Wong was the first Asian-American movie star, but racism and discrimination hurt her career.

Who Was Anna May Wong?

Anna May Wong was an Asian-American actress who did well in both Hollywood and Europe. She was in movies like “Piccadilly” (1929), “Daughter of the Dragon” (1931), and “Shanghai Express,” all of which did well (1932). Even though, as a Chinese American, she was often limited to smaller roles that fit the Asian stereotypes that white producers and audiences expected, Wong still managed to put her own mark on the parts she was given. In 1961, She worked in silent films, talkies, the theatre, and on TV before her death at the age of 56 years. Since then, Wong has become known as an important Asian-American actress who overcame hard times and helped pave the way for later generations of performers.

Family:

Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong on January 3, 1905, in Los Angeles, California. Her parents, Wong Sam Sing and Lee Gon Toy were Chinese Americans who came to the United States as children. Before the finish of the nineteenth 100 years, it was simpler for Chinese individuals to come to the United States. This was when Wong’s grandparents moved there.

Early Life:

Wong was the second of seven kids her parents had. The family-owned a laundromat and lived near it. Wong spent a lot of time as a child working in the laundry or delivering things to clients. Wong and her older sister had to deal with racist taunts from their classmates at their mixed-race elementary school. Wong said later about the experience, “For us, every day was torture.” Then, her parents sent the girls to the Chinese Mission School, which was mostly made up of Chinese Americans.

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Career Beginning:

Wong was able to see Hollywood movies being made in Chinatown when she was young. She was so interested in everything that people called her the “curious Chinese child.” Even though his father didn’t like the idea, Wong wanted to work in movies. She chose the stage name Anna May Wong, and at age 14, she got her start as a background actor in The Red Lantern (1919).

 

First Technicolor Movie:

In 1921, Wong quit high school to focus on acting. At age 17, she got the lead role in The Toll of the Sea, which was based on Madame Butterfly (1922). In the movie, which was one of the first Technicolor movies, she did a good job. In The Thief of Bagdad (1924), Wong played a Mongol slave girl who was also a spy alongside Douglas Fairbanks. This made her a bigger star. In 1924, she started The Anna May Wong Productions, her own production company. A dishonest business partner soon caused the business to fail, but she kept getting work in movies.

Hollywood Limits:

Wong felt like Hollywood was putting limits on him. It was common for white actors to play Asian roles by putting on make-up and wearing Asian clothes. The practice, called “yellowface,” was not only offensive but also limited the roles that Wong could play. He said, “Rather than real Chinese, producers prefer Hungarians, Mexicans, and American Indians for Chinese roles.”

Anti-Miscegenation Laws:

Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States also kept studios from letting people of different races kiss in movies. This meant that Wong could not play the lead role in a romantic movie with a white actor. Instead, she was often cast as a submissive woman or a sneaky “dragon lady” in smaller roles. Her characters often died by making a sacrifice or getting what they deserved.

Leaving for Europe:

Since Wong couldn’t do much in Hollywood, she left in 1928 to continue her career in Germany and England. Piccadilly, which came out in 1929 and won her praise, was her last silent film. Wong then moved on to talkies. She spoke French, English, and German in different versions of The Flame of Love (1930).

Fashion Leader:

Wong was in the play A Circle of Chalk with Laurence Olivier in London in 1929. She also wrote the musical play Tschun-Tshi, which she put on in Vienna. Wong, who had been a model when she was younger, became a fashion leader while she was in Europe.

Go back to the U.S.

In 1930, Wong went back to the U.S. to perform in the play “On the Spot” on Broadway. But there was one part of her return that her white friends would never have seen. Wong was inborn in the United States, but because of the Chinese Exclusion Act and its changes, she had to go to the Immigration and Naturalization Service before going abroad to get a certificate of identity that would let her get back in.

Join Paramount Studios:

Wong joined Paramount Studios after that. In the 1931 movie Daughter of the Dragon, she played another type, but at least she was the main star. Shanghai Express, from 1932, starred Wong and Marlene Dietrich, a friend from when she lived in Europe. It was a better movie.

Interview:

Wong didn’t get many roles in movies that weren’t silly or sad. In an interview in 1933, she talked about some of her anger, “Why does the screen do that? Chinese is almost always the bad guy, and he is a cruel bad guy. He is murderous, sneaky, and a snake in the grass. That’s not how we are. How should we feel about a culture that is so much older than our own? We all have good qualities. We have a strict set of rules about how to act. Why don’t they ever put these on TV?”

The Good Earth:

In 1935, Wong wanted to play the lead role of O-Lan in the movie version of The Good Earth, which was based on Pearl Buck’s novel about a Chinese family living in the countryside. She did screen tests, but the studio didn’t really think about her. Then, Wong was asked to try out for Lotus, who was a sneaky concubine. She was eventually offered that role, but she turned it down, saying, “You’re asking me, with Chinese blood, to play the only unlikable character in a movie where all the actors are Americans playing Chinese people.”

Luise Rainer, who was white, got the part that Wong wanted, and she went on to win an Oscar for her performance.

Visiting China:

In the wake of figuring out that he would not have been in The Good Earth, Wong left Hollywood and went to China in 1936. There, she was criticized for playing stereotypes on screen, but she said that wasn’t her fault because she wasn’t the one who wrote those parts. She later said, “It’s pretty sad that Chinese people don’t want to hire me because I’m “too American,” and American producers don’t want to hire me because they’d rather have actors of other races play Chinese roles.”

China Culture:

Wong did get to learn more about China and its culture during the trip. She told The New York Herald Tribune and The Los Angeles Times about her trip.

Later in Life:

Daughter of Shanghai (1937), which had a Korean American male lead, was unusual for Wong because it had a happy ending. She made Bombs over Burama (1942) and Lady from Chungking (1944) during World War II (1942). She also helped raise money for China, which Japan had taken over.

First Asian American:

Wong stopped acting in 1942, but she still showed up in movies and on TV now and then. In 1951, she was the first Asian American to play the lead role in a TV show. It was called The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, and she played an amateur detective who worked as an art dealer during the day.

Last Wish:

Wong had a small role as Lana Turner’s maid in the 1960 movie Portrait in Black. The Savage Innocents was the last movie she was in (1961). She wanted to make a comeback in the Hollywood version of the musical Flower Drum Song, but she died before production started.

Personal Life:

Wong never tied the knot. There were rumours that she was dating both Dietrich and white men. Even if this rumour was true, the laws and attitudes of Wong’s time made it impossible for these relationships to lead to marriage.

Death and What Left:

Wong died in Santa Monica, Calif., on February 3, 1961. She turned 56. A coronary Failure was the reason for death. She had been sick with liver disease for years before she died.

Anna May Wong:

In Her Own Words was a film about Wong’s life. In Searching for Anna May Wong, a different documentary, the question was asked if Wong would still have to deal with the same problems in her career today. Wong was a character on the TV show Hollywood, even though her story was made up.

Star on the Hollywood Walk:

Wong has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and has been the subject of biographies like Anna May Wong: From Laundryman’s Daughter to Hollywood Legend and Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong.