![]() The reviews were rapturous, with the New York Times saying “she should be seen again and often on the screen”, but she wouldn’t find another lead role for years. Only a year later, she starred in The Toll of the Sea, a retelling of the Madame Butterfly story in lurid two-strip Technicolor. ![]() Two years later she dropped out of school to follow her dream of acting. In 1919, Wong started working as an extra in Hollywood films. Her father owned a laundry, but young Wong was naturally far more fascinated by the motion picture industry that was taking over the town than the family business. Wong was born Wong Liu-tsong in Los Angeles in 1905 to second-generation Chinese American parents. How should we be, with a civilization that is so many times older than that of the west?” Murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass. “Why is it that the screen Chinese is nearly always the villain?” she asked. ![]() When she got the chance to say so, she was open about her frustration with Hollywood, saying: “I was so tired of the parts I had to play.” She stated the case plainly to a reporter after she moved to Europe. Wong’s plain speaking on the nature of Hollywood’s race problem has also aged well. Too many of her appearances on screen are brief, but Wong had tangible screen presence, and makes a powerful impact in each scene.Īnna May Wong in this 1928 picture. Wong was confronted with the “Dragon Lady” trope from the very start of her career, but although her legacy was tainted by the number of stereotyped roles she played, her stock has risen recently as fans and scholars have focused on her talent: her poignant performance in The Toll of the Sea, her multifaceted lead performance in Piccadilly, her smoldering chemistry with Dietrich in Shanghai Express. The 1929 British silent film Piccadilly, in which she plays an East-End potwasher who becomes a West-End dancing sensation, may well be her best work – and even then she was denied top billing.Įarlier this month, Meghan Markle interviewed journalist Lisa Ling and the comedian Margaret Cho on her Archetypes podcast, where they discussed the “toxic stereotyping of women of Asian descent” in the media. Hollywood’s reference for “yellowface” over casting Asian actors is the reason why Wong’s US career never reached the heights it should have – but is also why she made so many films in Europe, where she had a significantly better chance of playing the lead. Ryan Murphy’s recent Netflix series Hollywood dramatizes the notorious incident in which white actor Luise Rainer was cast instead of Wong for the lead in China-set drama The Good Earth in 1937. It might also remind us that the racism that she encountered in the film industry has hardly gone away. The gesture acknowledges Wong’s global success in cinema, and her pioneering status as Hollywood’s first Chinese American star.
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