From Another Time and a Bygone Era - Anna May Wong

[Randy W]

This article in Leonard Maltin's Indiewire was interesting in itself - a throwback to the days when vaudeville and pre-code movies comingled, a time when you could spend an entire day watching both. You'll recognize several of the names of stars who performed live on the new York and Brooklyn stages.

Pre-code movies is a fascinating topic in itself - in the years before the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced, movies were not obscene or objectionable by today standards, but free to take bizarre plot twists which even today would be seen as immoral and promoting bad behavior - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Code_Hollywood


One of the stars was Anna May Wong,

Throwback Thursday: Stanwyck, Crosby, Anna May Wong

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The New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall reviewed both the film and the Manhattan stage show, noting, “There is a glamorous spectacle called ‘Springtime in the Orient’ wherein the clever Anna May Wong appears. She sings in Chinese and recites in English. Walter O’Keefe, as the master of ceremonies, furnishes a good deal of amusement.” No mention of Crosby at all! (His breakthrough feature, The Big Broadcast, wouldn’t be released until that fall.)

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_May_Wong

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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).

. . .

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.

 

Anna May Wong: In Her Own Words

Edited February 2, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

I dug up an old thread for this, since Anna May Wong is mentioned in the video

Correcting Yellowface


This Asian-American Woman Beautifully Corrected Hollywood’s "Yellowface" Problem

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Villemaire wasn't having it, so she did Hollywood a favor and corrected its mistakes by dressing as iconic whitewashed roles and getting photographed in the costumes.

Historically, these depictions have been downright racist. White actors have played Asian characters by taping their eyelids flat and adopting exaggerated accents on screen, like Katharine Hepburn's portrayal of Jade in the 1944 film Dragon Seed.

 

 

 

 

 

"I find it hard all of the excuses that are made about nobody casting Asians," she said. "It makes it even more ridiculous."

Here's Villemaire as Luise Rainer in the 1937 film The Good Earth:

 

 

 

As Myrna Loy in the the 1932 film The Mask of Fu Manchu:

 

 

 

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Villemaire's project is so powerful in particular because it shows the world what's possible — if only we gave Asian actors a chance.

"I wanted to shine a light on how ridiculous it was that these women were cast in these roles," Villemaire said. "I just find it hard to believe that Asian actors were hard to find back then."

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

in the Smithsonianmag

 

Happy Birthday to Hollywood’s First Chinese-American Star

She was a leading lady, but racism held her career back

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“In classic Hollywood, not only was it okay to act Asian, it was celebrated,” writes Anne Helen Petersen for Buzzfeed. But to be Asian was quite a different matter, she writes: Hollywood and its audiences thought that an Asian woman could only play very limited roles, despite Wong’s fame—she could be the villainess or the slave girl, but never the heroine, even when that heroine was Chinese.

 

“Wong was a silent film demi-star, a European phenomenon, a cultural ambassador, and a curiosity, the de facto embodiment of China, Asia, and the ‘Orient’ at large for millions,” she writes. It’s not a role the film star chose, Petersen says, but she worked within it, laboring to challenge a limiting stereotype that kept her out of the spotlight.

 

Wong was of Chinese descent, writes Richard Corliss for Time, but she was born in Los Angeles’ Chinatown and was a native English speaker. She grew up watching movies being shot in Chinatown, which was often used in films as a stand-in for China itself, and knew she wanted to act.

 

. . .

 

“The part of Lotus Blossom was one of the few leading romantic roles she would play in Hollywood,” according to a Beinecke Library exhibit, “where, to her great frustration, Wong was regularly offered only parts as stereotypical and unrealistic Asian characters.” She was a “Mongol slave” in her next role as a handmaiden in The Thief of Baghdad with Douglas Fairbanks, Corliss writes.

 

So in 1928, she had the opportunity to go to Europe, where she found more success and felt she was celebrated on her own terms. When talkies came along, she performed in English, French and German.

 

When she returned to America, she took a “classic evil vamp” role in Daughter of the Dragon, Petersen writes, in exchange for a serious part in Shanghai Express with Marlene Dietrich:

 

( forward to 1:18 )

( forward to 1:18 )

 

But even after that, in movies like the film version of Pearl S. Buck’s blockbuster novel, The Good Earth, which is set in China and has a Chinese woman as a main character, she saw white women chosen for parts she was eminently qualified to play and dressed up in yellowface, while she heard she was “too Chinese.”

 

 

 

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

from Vanity Fair

 

Lucy Liu Pays Tribute to Anna May Wong During Touching Walk of Fame Ceremony

“People talk about my mainstream successes as groundbreaking for an Asian,” Liu said, “but Asians have been making movies for a long time.“

 

 

On Wednesday, Lucy Liu became the second Asian-American woman to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The first was Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong, who worked heavily throughout the 1920s and 30s and was awarded a star in 1960. In her speech, Liu paid tribute to Wong for paving the way for her career.

“A hundred years ago, she was a pioneer while enduring racism, marginalization, and exclusion,” Liu said. “We could actually start our own little Chinatown right here.”

 

[Randy W]

This just popped up on Facebook again, but I see that I've already posted it a few years ago (see 2 posts up)

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/happy-birthday-hollywoods-first-chinese-american-star-180961606/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=socialmedia

Happy Birthday to Hollywood’s First Chinese-American Star

She was a leading lady, but racism held her career back

Edited January 7, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

Okay here's a new one

Who is Anna May Wong? Hollywood's First Chinese-American Trailblazer
On the late star's birthday, L'OFFICIEL looks back on the life and legacy of Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong, who paved the way for Asian representation in film and TV.
01.03.2021
by Caroline Kloster

 

Michelle Krusiec, a Taiwanese-American actress, plays Anna May Wong in Ryan Murphy's "Hollywood" on Netflix.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

 . . . and one of her old movies on YouTube

The Red Lantern, 1919 by Albert Capellani (Starring Alla Nazimova & Noah Beery. With Anna May Wong)

Anna May Wong was 14 years old in this movie. Her role is said to be that of a lantern bearer, and that she tried to maneuver herself as close to the camera as she could. I haven't figured out which scene she is in, nor have I found any pictures of it. The lantern scenes are around the 47:50 - 51:00 points in the movie.
 

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The Red Lantern tells the story of a Eurasian, Joan of Arc-like heroine, Mahlee, who forsakes her own people to live among white Europeans, until political tumult draws her back across the color line to foment anti-imperialist uprising in China's 1900 Boxer Rebellion. While Mahlee literally "hears voices" (à la Joan of Arc) that compel her to revolutionary action, star actress Alla Nazimova doubles in this role as Mahlee and as her estranged white [half]-sister, Blanche Sackville. Blanche's sister from another mother (i.e., their white British father's Chinese mistress), Mahlee struggles with her simultaneous attraction and repulsion towards her kinfolk colonizers -- and more pointedly with the politics of British colonialism in fin-de-siècle China.

Directed by Albert Capellani
Starring Alla Nazimova & Noah Beery
Anna May Wong's screen debut
Written by June Mathis & Edith Wherry (novel)
Cinematography by Tony Gaudio

 

 

 

[Randy W]

Anna May Wong

by Ruth Harriet Louise (Ruth Goldstein)
halftone reproduction tear sheet, published 25 July 1928
9 3/8 in. x 7 1/4 in. (238 mm x 183 mm) image size
Given by Terence Pepper, 1996
Photographs Collection
NPG x137073

https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw233043/Anna-May-Wong

 

 

 

[Randy W]

from Pre Code Hollywood 1929 1934 on Facebook 
https://www.facebook.com/groups/573217349446209/permalink/3786202788147633/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/573217349446209/permalink/3786306998137212/
The Mask of Fu Manchu

Myrna Loy and Boris Karloff in "yellowface"

[Randy W]

[Randy W]

A quarter for Anna May Wong

United States Mint Announces Designs for 2022 American Women Quarters™ Program Coins

Beginning in 2022 and continuing through 2025, the Mint will issue five quarters in each of these years. The ethnically, racially, and geographically diverse group of individuals honored through this program reflects a wide range of accomplishments and fields, including suffrage, civil rights, abolition, government, humanities, science, space, and the arts. The 2022 coins recognize the achievements of Maya Angelou, Dr. Sally Ride, Wilma Mankiller, Nina Otero-Warren, and Anna May Wong.

• Anna May Wong—first Chinese American film star in Hollywood, who left a legacy for women in the film industry
  Designer: Emily Damstra, AIP Designer
  Sculptor: John P. McGraw, Medallic Artist
  This design features a close-up image of Anna May Wong with her head resting on her hand, surrounded by the bright lights of a marquee sign. Inscriptions are “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” “E PLURIBUS UNUM,” “QUARTER DOLLAR,” and “ANNA MAY WONG.”

 

 

 

Edited October 9, 2021 by Randy W (see edit history)

[Randy W]

 

Anna May Wong Quarter

 

American Women Quarters

• Year of Issue: 2022
• Authorizing Legislation: Public Law 116-330
• View in our product catalog.

Background

The Anna May Wong Quarter is the fifth coin in the American Women Quarters™ Program. Anna May Wong was the first Chinese American film star in Hollywood. She left a legacy for women in the film industry.

Wong appeared in more than 60 movies throughout her career. In addition to her roles in silent films, television, and stage, she landed a role in one of the first movies made in Technicolor. She achieved international success despite racism and discrimination.

Characteristics

The obverse (heads) depicts a portrait of George Washington. The design was originally composed and sculpted by Laura Gardin Fraser as a candidate entry for the 1932 quarter, which honored the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth.

The reverse (tails) features a close-up image of Anna May Wong with her head resting on her hand, surrounded by the bright lights of a marquee sign.

[Randy W]

Anna May Wong , 1920’s.   

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2016746155127213/permalink/2574103042724852/

[Randy W]

Daughter of the Dragon is a 1931 American pre-Code crime mystery film directed by Lloyd Corrigan, and starring Anna May Wong as Princess Ling Moy, Sessue Hayakawa as Ah Kee, and Warner Oland as Dr. Fu Manchu (for his third and final feature appearance in the role). This film was made to capitalize on Sax Rohmer's then current book, The Daughter of Fu Manchu.

Daughter of the Dragon (1931) | Anna May Wong, Warner Oland, Bramwell Fletcher | Full Length Movie

https://youtu.be/RxVueq6-DhI

The link could not be embedded because youtu.be does not allow embedding of that video.

[Randy W]

Marlene Dietrich and Anna May Wong