Anna May Wong - Actress Extrodinaire.

 You read the name and probably wondered who Anna May Wong is.  You might wonder why she needs a bit more attention.  Well this beautiful lady is credited with being the first Chinese-American actress acknowledged as a star in the United States.

Anna May was born in the Chinatown part of Los Angeles, California back on January 3, 1905 and was the second of eight children.  Although she was given the name Wong Liu Tsong, her family also gave her the English name of Anna May which she used as her stage name.

Her family arrived in the United States in the 1850's when her grandfather arrived from China to open a store near the gold rush but died early when he tried to rescue a woman from a well.  Her father returned to China when his father died but he eventually returned to the states, married a woman and started a laundromat.  Although she was the third generation to live in this country, she faced a lot of racism when she attended local schools, so she ended up transferring to a Chinese school.

She like many others, discovered movies provided an escape but she sometimes took it a bit further by ditching school and headed off to various film sets.  Once there, she'd work her way to the front so she was a close to the cameras as possible.

Standing near the cameras attracted the eyes of casting directors and at the age of 14, she was cast in her first role in the movie Red Lantern.  Soon she dropped out of school to pursue her acting career full time. Within three years, she was cast in the Thief of Bagdad which is considered her break out role.  Over her lifetime she acted in over 50 films but many of them were roles in which she played a sexualized slave or servant.  This was the stereotyped role accepted by most people when they saw Asian women and expected Asian to either be sexy or a villain in some capacity.

When she returned to China, she faced resentment because of playing roles which portrayed Asian women this way.  Local newspapers branded her " the female traitor to China" but that did not stop her from raising funds for refugees during World War II.  Unfortunately, Hollywood tended to be as raciest as the rest of American society and cast white women in Asian roles.  In Anna May's autobiography, she says she had to teach one actress how to use chopsticks for her leading role as an Asian in the film.  In addition, she was hampered by laws that said she could not kiss anyone who was not Asian on screen.

Furthermore, as a minority actress, she was paid much less than the going rate for white actresses.  When she starred in Daughter of the Dragon, she had the lead role and was only paid $6,000 as compared to another actor who was paid $12,000 for 23 minutes of work in the same film.  Then when she acted in Shanghai Express, opposite Marlene Dietrich, she earned $6,000 versus Marlene's $78,000.

Anna May decided she was tired of being type cast so she moved to Europe where she stared in several films and even acted opposite of Laurence Olivier.  As a matter of fact, she learned French,  and German so she could speak all her lines in movies.  Europe loved her because there were so few Asians there and she was able to flourish.  During the 1930's, Paramount Pictures contacted her to return to the United States by guaranteeing her lead roles but she still ended up with stereotypical roles. In addition, her family moved back to China in 1934, after her mother died after being hit by a car.

At one point in 1937, she was asked to audition for the role of the only unsympathetic concubine in the Good Earth.  She wanted to audition for the lead role, they let her but they still cast a German-American actress in the lead role so she turned down the concubine role they offered her.  Due to the continued racism of the time, they refused to cast any Asians in lead roles because they felt Asians would not have enough marketing appeal. By 1947, she chose to retire, only to come out of retirement in 1951 to play a Asian gallery owner and detective making her the first Asian American to land a lead role on television. Unfortunately, it only lasted one season.

She'd hoped to land a role in The Flower Drum Song in 1961 but died that same year at the age of 55 or 56.  She died prematurely of heart failure due to being a heavy drinker and smoker much of her life, but she received her own star on the Hollywood walk of fame.  Throughout her acting career, she played Asians such as Chinese or Mongol, but also Alaskan Native, or Hispanic, depending on the needs of the movie.

As far as her personal life, off screen, it appears she never married but she had several relationships with men both single and married.  Unfortunately, she was attracted to white men and it would not have been possible for her to marry one.  It is said she became engaged to a man  but he dumped her when it threatened to tank his career.  All that is known for sure is that she never married, never had children.

I ran across Anna May Wong in something I read the other day and I wanted to know more.  I was aware that most minority actors and actresses ended up facing racism in Hollywood and struggled to land better roles.  Although, I understand she was a wonderful actress, most of the roles she could land were in B grade movies.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.