Rediscovering Anna May Wong

[bonsai]

1.7.04 - 2.11.04
UCLA Film and Television Archive & Hugh M. Hefner present
REDISCOVERING ANNA MAY WONG

Anna May Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong in 1905 in Los Angeles, where her family operated a laundry. Wong began her career as an extra at the age of 14 and had several supporting roles before being cast as the lead in the first two-color Technicolor feature, THE TOLL OF THE SEA (1922). A stunning beauty, Wong was the first Chinese American actress to become an international celebrity and appeared in over 50 films, making the transition from silents to talkies and even to television. However, despite her star power, Wong lost some coveted roles to white actors in "yellowface."
Diabolical Dragon Lady or fragile Lotus Blossom, villainess or victim, Wong's Hollywood screen persona seemed to oscillate between these two poles. In a wry and telling quote she later reflected, "I think I left Hollywood because I died so often. I was killed in virtually every picture in which I appeared." Like many of her African American colleagues, she sought greater opportunities in Europe, where she made three remarkable silent pictures, including the glorious and newly restored PICCADILLY, which opens our program, and two German films, SONG and PAVEMENT BUTTERFLY, with director Richard Eichberg. Wong's collaboration with Eichberg recalls Louise Brooks' films with G.W. Pabst (also included in this Calendar).
Wong holds a unique place in Hollywood history as the first Asian American screen goddess. The unique career and talent of this Los Angeles native is long overdue for rediscovery and celebration.

http://www.cinema.ucla.edu

[hooligan]

i'll check this out, not too many people like her though because of all those dragon lady like characters she plays.

[younggiftedandblack]

i'll check this out, not too many people like her though because of all those dragon lady like characters she plays.

Which is silly because she didn't have much of a choice in those days on roles she could play.

[hooligan]

Which is silly because she didn't have much of a choice in those days on roles she could play.yeah, well, it still doesn't stop the hate some people have for her. haha, well not hate, but you know what i mean? she's not remembered very fondly among a lot of APIAs.

[mr. x]

sigh, i saw the Toll of the Sea and the only thing i can really do is pity her

[bonsai]

LEGENDS OF HOLLYWOOD
An uneasy success
Anna May Wong hit the screen when Asian American stars didn't exist. Her mystique, and the stereotypes, endure.

By Scarlet Cheng, Special to The Times

She was the first Asian movie star in the West, and her career spanned four decades, bridging the silent films to talkies, and even venturing onto stage and into early television. Anna May Wong was a woman in the right place at the right time.

Born in Los Angeles to traditional Chinese parents in 1905, her star-struck ambition and her svelte good looks coincided with a taste for Oriental exotica on stage and screen in the U.S. and in Europe in the '20s and the '30s. Her career rose meteorically, yet she would find it hard to escape the crater of stereotyping into which she too easily tripped. "Rediscovering Anna May Wong," presented by the UCLA Film and Television Archive from Friday through Jan. 25, includes 12 features from the apex of her stardom. They range from the silent film "Toll of the Sea" (1922), her first starring role, to "Shanghai Express" (1932), her most famous, to rarely seen B pictures like "Daughter of the Dragon" (1931) and "Daughter of Shanghai" (1937) that were her staple.

In the last decade several of these have been beautifully restored — most recently "Piccadilly" (1929), which was Wong's last silent film and one in which she plays a cheeky scullery maid who becomes the glittering headliner at a swank London nightclub. In this and countless other films, she does her obligatory Oriental-style shimmy, here a concoction with Thai and Balinese flavors, in a scanty Oriental-style costume while desire-filled white men look on.

"For a good 10 years she received top billing, she was a huge international star," says Mimi Brody, who programmed the UCLA series. "For an Asian American actress there's no comparison for the scope of her career."

During World War ll, Wong announced her retirement and did fundraising for the United China Relief Fund. But she couldn't stay away from show business and in the 1950s she made several television and movie appearances. She was gearing up for a movie comeback and was slated for a key role in the movie version of "Flower Drum Song" when she died of a heart attack in 1961.

Lotus Flower key role

Anna MAY WONG started out in the business taking on bit parts while still a teenager and living at home helping out in the family laundry business. Then she landed the starring role in "Toll of the Sea." Set in some Hollywood-lot China and borrowing heavily from "Madame Butterfly," the film had the young actress playing willowy Lotus Flower, who falls in love with a white merchant.

After impregnating her, the merchant abandons her, then later returns with his white wife. Naturally, Lotus Flower has to fling herself into the sea in disgrace, the first of many films in which Wong was obliged to die — by her hand or at the hand of others — by the close of the film. (Poisoning and stabbing were particularly popular denouements for her characters.) Sometimes she takes this drastic measure because of thwarted love, especially when she realizes she is no match for the white female interest of the white male hero ("Toll of the Sea," "Java Head," "Dangerous to Know"). For even though she entices the man, she rarely gets him, consistent with the contemporary bias that while miscegenation was titillating, it wasn't really acceptable.

The actress' next big break came from silent superstar Douglas Fairbanks, who cast her as the slave girl/Mongol spy in "The Thief of Bagdad" (not in the UCLA series). But while the film made her famous, she was slotted into a series of small roles in Hollywood until she decided to jump-start her career in Europe.

German director Richard Eichberg had offered her a five-picture film contract, and in 1928 she moved to Europe, chaperoned by her sister. Two years later she had learned enough German and French to make three versions of Eichberg's "The Flame of Love" — in English, German and French, with three different leading men.

When she finally returned to Los Angeles, she was in demand, eventually tallying some 60 features, most of which have been lost. Nearly all played heavily on racial and cultural stereotypes. During the Depression there was a huge appetite for foreign accents, foreign people and foreign locations, preferably with scenes of high living and untold luxury thrown in, but in the end the morality of the time would have to reassert itself.

Centennial approaches

The fascination for Anna May Wong continues, perhaps in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of her birth.

There are three new books about Wong: Anthony Chan's "Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong (1905-1961)" was published last October, and soon to come are another biography, Graham Hodges' "Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend," and a well-researched reference book, Philip Leibfried and Chei Mi Lane's "Anna May Wong: A Complete Guide to Her Film, Stage, Radio and Television Work."

Chan, a former journalist who teaches at the University of Washington in Seattle, will give an illustrated talk about Wong at UCLA on Saturday. Speaking by phone, he acknowledges that Wong fell into highly stereotyped roles but admires what she achieved. "Through racism and patriarchy she was [still] able to succeed," he says.

In fact, she succeeded partly because she played into racism and patriarchy, Chan believes. Typically, she was made up to look like a China doll, with straight-cut bangs, pencil eyebrows and heavy eyeliner, often dressed in some exotic get-up, high-neck tunics and embroidered robes. She had two main roles, each delivered in a highly mannered way: the Dragon Lady whose evil machinations cause death and destruction and the Lotus Blossom who's all too eager to please her man.

Wong was aware of her uneasy position. As early as 1925 she said in a newspaper interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, "It is hard to get into the pictures, but it is harder to keep in them. Of course, it is nice enough if one gets a five-year contract as some of the actors do, but freelancing which I do is not easy. You see, there are not many Chinese parts."

Now and then we get glimpses of what Wong was capable of and could have become had she had better material and better directors. Take her role as Hui Fei, the Chinese woman sharing a train compartment with the notorious Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich), in "Shanghai Express." While Wong had her usual sullen demeanor and few speaking lines, director Josef von Sternberg brought out the spark of her inner life. In one brief scene an elderly passenger barges in on them, announcing that she is running a "respectable" boarding house in Shanghai.

Wong, who has been calmly and resolutely playing solitaire, hands back the woman's calling card with acid dripping in her voice: "I must confess I don't quite know the standard of respectability that you demand in your boarding house, Mrs. Haggerty." Toward the end of the film, she is playing solitaire again, this time after having exacted her revenge upon a rebel officer (Warner Oland, playing yellowface again) who has assaulted her. She throws down a card with emphasis. "Death has canceled his debt to me."

Apparently, Dietrich thought she'd been upstaged by Wong. There are those who see this luminous film who might very well agree with her.

'Rediscovering Anna May Wong'

When: Friday, Jan. 9, through Jan. 25

Where: James Bridges Theater, 1409 Melnitz Hall, UCLA, Westwood

Price: $7-$8

Contact: (310) 206-FILM or www.cinema.ucla.edu

[hooligan]

ok, i'll be at schhool by then, anyone wants to see it with me?

[Shuriken]

http://library.brandeis.edu/specialcollections/FindingGuides/special/VECHTEN/images/folder46/Anna-MayWong4-20-193246-3.jpg

Okay, I'm really looking forward to the Anna May Wong film festival at UCLA this weekend. I already bought my tickets in advance.

Just out of curiousity, is anyone else from YW going?

[kitty]

http://library.brandeis.edu/specialcollections/FindingGuides/special/VECHTEN/images/folder46/Anna-MayWong4-20-193246-3.jpg

Okay, I'm really looking forward to the Anna May Wong film festival at UCLA this weekend. I already bought my tickets in advance.

Just out of curiousity, is anyone else from YW going?

I totally would go if I were in the warmth of cali. :(

incidentally, welcome back shuriken... hadn't noticed any posts from you recently :)

[hooligan]

i'm going, meeting up with bonsai there tonight. where are you going to be?

[Shuriken]

welcome back shuriken... hadn't noticed any posts from you recently :)

Thanks, K.G., it's nice to be missed. :)

[Shuriken]

i'm going, meeting up with bonsai there tonight. where are you going to be?

I'll probably be waiting in line reading Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend by Graham Russell Gao Hodges.

I'm expecting tonight's show to sell out (just like Anna May — oops, just kidding!), so get there early.

[hooligan]

ah jeez, i'll go pick up my tickets in a little bit shuriken, thanks for the heads up :D

[hooligan]

so, i just got back from watching picadilly with bonsai. both of us agree, she's hot stuff.

[bonsai]

so, i just got back from watching picadilly with bonsai. both of us agree, she's hot stuff.

haha...hooligan was practically drooling. what was a nice surprise was that anna may wong's brother attended the showing.

[mr. x]

haha...hooligan was practically drooling. what was a nice surprise was that anna may wong's brother attended the showing.

how old is he?

[hooligan]

how old is he?
ancient! but not that old.

[bonsai]

how old is he?

i'm guessin' he's in his 70s...

[bonsai]

A woman ahead of her time
Wong’s timeless beauty still glows in a biography and film re-release
By Nadine Kam, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 12/28/03

In today's celebrity-obsessed culture, Anna May Wong would no doubt be an instant international superstar. Magnetic, beautiful, talented, original and stylish, she was, unfortunately, born nearly 100 years before her time.

Anna May Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong at the edge of Los Angeles' Chinatown in 1905 to laundryman Wong Sam Sing and his wife, Lee Gon Toy. One of eight children, Wong managed to become a movie star, in spite of restrictions imposed by her culture and by American society awash with anti-Chinese sentiment.

Before the world would see such outspoken stars as Madonna, Marilyn Manson and Eminem, Wong was a progressive-minded provocateur who challenged Hollywood's use of actors in yellow-face and the Chinese exclusion laws that limited her career. This was at a time when Chinese were virtually invisible from American public life, isolated in major cities by Chinatown ghettoes.

But even as she fought to forge a new dynamic image of Chinese in America, the roles she took -- villainess, vamp or victim -- were often perceived as demeaning to Chinese here and in the motherland. The result was political unpopularity leading to near obscurity today.

But Anna May Wong will have her revenge as she is celebrated with a new biography by Graham Russell Gao Hodges that coincides with the release of the British Film Institute's restoration of E.A. Dupont's 1929 silent film "Piccadilly," in which Wong plays a dancer at a London nightclub. The film plays through Tuesday at the Honolulu Academy of Arts' Doris Duke Theatre.

Hodges, a professor of history at Colgate University and the author of several books on New York City and African-American history, experienced Wong's allure firsthand during a 1999 trip to London, when a picture of her in a shop dealing in autographed photos stopped him in his tracks. Being a "collector type," he immediately plunked down 300 pounds for it, about $500.

His collecting didn't stop there.

"I started doing some research on the Internet, and I found out she was a very interesting person," he said during a phone interview. He added to his collection with photographs and postcards purchased on eBay, saying, "It became a little bit of an obsession."

The obsession spilled over during a talk with an editor at Palgrave McMillan, a division of St. Martin's Press, and "Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend" was born. Hodges was working on a book about New York taxi drivers but put that on hold to focus on Wong's story. Hers might have been a typical movie-star biography, if not for the laws that governed her career, her travels and her love life.

"It brought me to a whole new world of Chinese-American history and a complex and fascinating person who had to deal with racism and early 20th-century attitudes toward the Chinese," Hodges said. As famous as Wong was -- a star in America, Europe and China -- she was subject to grueling immigration interviews before re-entering the country. The purpose of the interviews was to confirm one's identity and called for recitation of the names of one's family members, their birth dates, key anniversaries, addresses, occupations, etc.

There were also laws preventing relationships between Caucasians and people of Chinese descent. In Hollywood this meant that Wong could not kiss a white leading man, which prevented her from becoming a leading lady.

"It was one of the disappointments of her career as she was forced to play secondary roles while less talented white women were performing in yellow-face," Hodges said. So great was the acceptance of transforming Caucasian actors into "Asians" that Hodges notes in his book that Wong learned MGM considered her "too Chinese to play a Chinese" and instead cast Helen Hayes in "The Son-Daughter."

When the biggest roles for Asians came up in the casting of Pearl S. Buck's Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Good Earth," Caucasian Paul Muni was cast as the male lead, nixing Wong's chance to play the female lead. The part went to Louise Rainer, who won an Academy Award for her performance.

Even though Wong's real-life relationships were with older, accomplished Caucasian men, California laws against mixed marriages remained in effect until 1948. When one of her lovers conspired to marry her in Mexico, his Hollywood career was threatened. At times, Wong imagined marrying a Chinese man, but due to the mores of Chinese culture this was unlikely due to the taint of her career. If she did have such a relationship, she would likely have been forced to give up her career to play the obedient wife.

WONG WAS an early film fan. As a child she made laundry deliveries for her father and used her tip money to visit movie theaters at a time when the film industry was still in its infancy. She continued to seek the theater even though visits during school hours led to spankings with a bamboo stick from her father.

The exotic world of Chinatown lured filmmakers to its streets, and Wong began begging for parts at age 9. She was dubbed "C.C.C." for "curious Chinese child."

Persistence paid off when she was given a part as an extra in 1919's "The Red Lantern," about a Eurasian woman who falls in love with an American missionary. Wong's first starring role was in 1921's "Bits of Life," in which she played the abused wife of Lon Chaney's character, Chin Gow.

In spite of her rapidly growing résumé, Wong learned that even in the fantasy world of film, there was no escaping the reality of racial prejudice. "The characters she was offered were often duplicitous, murderous, they were often raped," Hodges said. "She was dealing with things that other leading ladies didn't have to go through."

Whenever she tired of the parts offered in Hollywood, she headed for Europe, telling journalist Doris Mackie: "I was so tired of the parts I had to play. Why is it that the screen Chinese is always the villain? And so crude a villain -- murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass."

In Europe she learned to speak German and French, and was welcomed as a star. She became, for people with limited exposure to Asians, the epitome of Asian womanhood. Women clamored to copy her haircut, tinted their faces to achieve the "Wong complexion" and donned coolie coats.

Off-screen, Wong traveled with an intellectual elite that included princes, playwrights, artists and photographers who clamored to work with her.

"She was in magazines all around the world, far out of proportion to the kinds of roles she had," Hodges said.

"Notably, she was the one American star who spoke to the French people, more than Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford or Mary Pickford, the top American actresses of the time," Hodges said. "But she's the one who's now forgotten."

Wong's sophistication could not save her. Even as she railed against stereotypes, the roles she took as a matter of survival as a single woman marked her in China, where actresses were regarded as little better than prostitutes. China was emerging as a powerful nation concerned about the reputation of Chinese people around the world. Chinese nationalists were offended by Wong's portrayals, and while she was welcomed by the cultural elite in Shanghai and Beijing in 1936, politics was another matter. A journey to her ancestral village was abandoned when a crowd blocked her path, with someone yelling "Down with Huang Liu Tsong -- the stooge that disgraces China. Don't let her go ashore."

Wong nevertheless returned from China determined to be more Chinese than ever, paying close attention to the symbolism of her costumes and her portrayals. But she was caught in a Catch-22 situation in which her only options were to turn down roles, or to take them while trying to influence change from within the machine.

During World War II, with Japan at war with China, Wong worked for China relief agencies. In spite of her contributions, she was snubbed by Madame Chiang Kai-Shek during a propaganda tour of America from winter 1942 to spring 1943. According to Hodges, this was the start of a new mind-set that deemed Wong's portrayals embarrassing to China, and reflecting poorly on America's antiquated perceptions. Rather than blaming Hollywood for the stereotypes, Americans and Chinese found it easier to blame Wong. As a result, Hodges said, "Her memory has been washed away."

Unlike other stars with family to preserve their memory through commercial endeavors, Hodges said Wong's family is too shy to talk about her, though they provided some of the photos and documents reproduced in the book.

"Stars come and go -- some of my students don't know who Lauren Bacall is -- but that's just one part of it. (Wong's) just so politically unpopular because of a limited view that gets in the way of seeing her brilliance and artistry that goes way beyond the kind of roles she played.

"I think there's going to be a lot of rediscovery of her. Not a lot of actors in her day were doing a lot of writing and traveling. They would have liked to have access to intellectuals, but she had it. She was a major intellectual player, and there are not many actors like that."

IN SPITE OF his fondness for Wong, Hodges said he tried to be objective, pointing out flaws such as her penchant for alcohol. This led to liver problems, and while most of her immediate family lived into their 80s, she died at age 56, at home in Los Angeles in 1961. She was to have played Auntie Liang in "Flower Drum Song," and was replaced by Juanita Hall.

Hodges continues to be amazed by Wong's journey, especially in light of the fact that there has yet to be an Asian female star to eclipse her renown, given the many difficulties she endured and considering the changing times and attitudes.

Nancy Kwan, who followed Wong in the '60s, had a relatively brief career, and Hodges complains that Lucy Liu "has gotta get out of the roles she's playing," noting that she's been typecast as the martial artist/ spy/femme fatale.

"When is she going to get a role like Nicole Kidman gets two to three times a year?"

This indicates "the same struggles are there," Hodges said. As recently as 1990, Asian Americans were fighting to have the part of "Miss Saigon's" Engineer, assumed to be Vietnamese, filled by an Asian, rather than English actor Jonathan Pryce, who then became "Eurasian" to quell the controversy.

Although subsequent casts have featured Asians in the part, serious film roles for Asians are still limited to such foreign-made films as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." The only "blind" casting of an Asian-American woman in recent memory was Ming-Na Wen as Wesley Snipes's wife in 1997's "One Night Stand. Otherwise, Asians are cast by martial arts ability or to round out an ensemble, giving a cast a patina of diversity.

HAVING LIVED with the Wong project for about four years, including traveling to Shanghai, Hodges said he's ready to let her go since putting other projects on hold to finish his biography. Even so, Wong has a way of popping into his life.

On Monday morning, Hodges' wife found a photo of her that he had never seen. A friend of his also found a diary that spoke of a hotel at Santa Catalina Island, where the cast of "Peter Pan" had stayed while shooting the 1924 film. According to the diary, the cast, including a 19-year-old Anna May Wong, had stayed up all night shooting craps.

"I've done a lot of book projects, but I've never done anything like this before and it was great fun for me," Hodges said. "I had a fabulous time getting to know her."

[Faithless]

Is this really a compliment to Anna?

Recasting legendary actresses (http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/living/10642498.htm?1c)

Posted on Fri, Jan. 14, 2005

By JAMI BERNARD
New York Daily News

Famous screen personalities stay forever young on DVD and in our memories. So it's a shock that in 2005, several grandes dames of the cinema would have turned 100: Greta Garbo, Myrna Loy, Clara Bow, Thelma Ritter and Anna May Wong.

It's good these ladies never lived to see today's movies; Loy died as late as 1993, but I doubt she caught that year's "Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday."

Ah, but who could ever replace them?
...
Our final centenarian is Anna May Wong, the first Asian actress to break through.

With her glossy bangs and stunning Chinese-American features, she was often cast in exotic roles.

Any ethnic actress who has cracked the mainstream could be Wong's successor: Jennifer Lopez, Maggie Cheung, Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz and especially Halle Berry.
Is it a glamourization of exotification?

[Faithless]

So, this would have been Anna May Wong's 100th year.

It seems that this year and last, there has been a bit of "rediscovery" with her life.

The National Portrait Gallery, in London no less, will have/be featuring some exhibits and talks on her life.

http://www.npg.org.uk/live/woannamaywong.asp

.
Also due out in January 2005?

Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend (http://www.palgrave-usa.com/Catalog/product.aspx?isbn=1403967903)
Graham Hodges

ISBN: 1-4039-6790-3
Binding: paperback
Published: January, 2005
Pages: 336
Availability: In Stock
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
List Price: $16.95

This title also available in Hardcover for $27.95

Reviews

"Hodges' book subtly but insistently positions Wong as a pivotal figure in the development of a unique Chinese-American identity, neither discarding her culture nor being bound by it."--City Paper (Philadelphia)
"In this groundbreaking biography . . . Hodges reveals this captivating woman, offering readers a sense of the struggle her career represented."--Publishers Weekly

"Graham Russell Gao Hodges's fascinating biography of Anna May Wong is an important contribution to not only film studies but Asian American history and women's history. The facts of Wong's life--her humble origins as laundryman's daughter, her tragic love affairs, her international political activism, and her celebrity status as the nation's first Chinese American movie star--is far more compelling than any of her roles on film."--Iris Chang, New York Times bestselling author of The Rape of Nanking and The Chinese American: A Narrative History

"In Anna May Wong, the talented and beguiling Anna May Wong receives the attention she has long deserved. With great sympathy and insight, Hodges tells the story of the actress who was too 'Oriental' for the America of the time but too Westernized to be accepted by the Chinese. This eminently readable and well-researched biography rescues a trail-blazing figure from the fringes of film and Asian-American history."--Stella Dong, author of Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City

"Graham Hodges has woven a spellbinding tale that sweeps you into Anna May Wong's star-crossed life, with rich details of the passions and lost loves, conflicts and triumphs, brilliance and frustrations of this daring woman born far ahead of her time. Like a scene with the great diva, this book has nuance, complexity, and drama--and I did not want it to end."--Helen Zia, author of Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People




Book Description

Anna May Wong was perhaps the best known Chinese American actresses during Hollywood's golden age, a free spirit and embodiment of the flapper era much like Louise Brooks. She starred in over fifty movies between 1919 and 1960, sharing the screen with such luminaries as Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Marlene Dietrich. Born in Los Angeles in 1905, Wong was the second daughter of six children born to a laundryman and his wife. Obsessed with film at a young age, she managed to secure a small part in a 1919 drama about the Boxer Rebellion. Her most famous film roles were in The Thief of Baghdad, Old San Francisco, and Shanghai Express opposite Dietrich. Despite these successes, instances of overt racism plagued Wong's career. When it came time to make a film version of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, she was passed over for the Austrian-born actress, Luise Rainer. In a narrative that recalls both the gritty life in Los Angeles's working-class Chinese neighborhoods and the glamour of Hollywood at its peak, Graham Hodges recounts the life of this elegant, beautiful, and underappreciated screen legend.

Table of Contents

Introduction * Childhood * Seeking Stardom * Europe * Atlantic Crossings * China * In Service of the Mother Land * Becoming Chinese American

[SunWuKong]

Is this really a compliment to Anna?

Recasting legendary actresses (http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/living/10642498.htm?1c)

wow, the writer is pretty ignorant about what Anna thought of the roles she was limitted to.