Anna May Wong

Clickets.

[quote] Anna May Wong

And Rong Tong Tong.

She had a dartboard with Luise Rainer's face on it.

I much preferred the acting of her sister (and DL favorite), Sum Ting. No one could register alarm and foreboding on the screen or stage quite like she could.

A really interesting actress. Not a happy ending though. Wish we had seen more roles.

Anna Mae wasn't as big as Sessue Haya-Kawa!

That Hollywood show made her seem like a big drinker -- dunno how accurate that portrayal was.

Listen to Mo Rocca’s Mobituary episode about her. It’s really interesting, and yes she became quite a drinker and very bitter. And deservedly so.

All I know is that cunt didn't win a supporting Actress Oscar for any work she did in 1947 BUT CLAIRE TREVOR DID win that supporting actress Oscar for the wonderful Key Largo.

Ryan Murphy is a despicable liar.

First major Chinese American actress. Can't imagine the racism she experienced. Sad she succumbed to alcohol.

They should make a proper biopic about her life.

Anna MAY Wong.

But then again, Anna may NOT Wong.

Non-white Old Hollywood stars are very fascinating to me. Anne May Wong, Sessue Hayakawa, Dorothy Dandridge, Paul Robeson, Lorenzo Tucker, Lena Horne, Fredi Washington and Rudolph Valentino (he was a dark-skinned Sicilian which was basically the equivalent of being a "mulatto" back then)

A*M*W

I would've loved to have seen what she would have done as Olan.

She was fascinating. I want to know the real cause of her dead.

I saw here in this.

It was awful. I think this is the movie that said all Eskimo mothers eat, chew and regurgitate food for Eskimo children.

Her "dead" was a heart attack but she also had cirrhosis.

What an interesting person. I've never heard of her but I work on Asia. Wikipedia says she was severely criticized by the Nationalists when she spent time in China in the 30s. It's unlikely that the Communists cared much for her either. It must have been hard for her visiting China at that time.

It's odd to think that Hollywood was a bit more open to non-white actors in leading roles in the silent era but the addition of sound set everything back.

Who were the men in her life?

Is it true she was 4 foot 7?

She sure died young.

R20 You seem to blaming Hollywood for failing her career in sound movies.

It seems she had an awful Californian speaking accent described by one critic as a "Yankee squeak".

This person named Wong Liu Tsong was nothing compared to me.

I loved her in Shanghai Express.

She and Marlene Dietrich play two prostitutes on a train. They end up rooming together on the train, although they don’t know each other, because everyone else is horrified and repulsed by the prostitutes. The Chinese prostitute is seen almost like a space alien. If not for Dietrich, no one would have approached her in a friendly way.

Dietrich runs into an old flame on the train, from before her fall. It’s a long journey and the group of travelers become friendly acquaintances. The train is boarded by some scary people that occupy it and terrorize the passengers, looking for someone.

Both women are extremely soft spoken and demure. Both act almost like concubines, extremely submissive, even in the face of cruelty and abuse. Resigned to their fate. Wong seems traumatized to start with, and later gets raped by the leader of the group that boarded the train. Both prostitutes think quickly on their feet, and try to save the others from trouble at the hands of the group that boarded them. They’re obviously more prepared by their prior experiences to see the danger they’re all in. Another callback to what appears to be their history of tragedy and abuse.

In a lot of ways, the performances transcend the time in which they’re set. It’s obvious the women are acting in a way that reflects their time, but they are so sad and worn down in their beautiful clothes. They know they aren’t accepted. They are handled with great honesty and delicacy, pre-Hayes Code.

It’s a great performance by both ladies, especially Wong.

We stand on her shoulders,

Ms. Swan Renee Zellweger Joan Rivers Me love you long time whores Mickey Rooney All Rice Queens everywhere Bai Ling’s snatch

R24 I made a general statement, sound changed everything, non-white actors were no longer leading actors, women, who had a larger part of Hollywood in the silent era, became marginalized too.

"Everything changed with the invention of the “talkie” — or movies with sound — in 1927. In a sentence, that’s when the movie business began to be taken more seriously as an engine for profit. Wall Street began to invest, and the many studios were consolidated into fewer, more powerful production hubs. Beauchamp says that in 1920, the L.A. directory listed 100 filmmaking companies; by 1933, there were seven. “By ‘33, moviemaking is a big business,” Beauchamp explained. “Salaries are higher. The guys wanted the jobs.” '

R26, I've never seen that film. Sounds like one to catch.

There was a proposal for a sitcom where Anna, and BD Wong from Law & Order SVU are mistakenly thought to be Betty White’s parents. Much hilarity ensues, but apparently no-one liked the name of the show:

Two Wongs Don’t Make A White.

She finished out her brilliant career in a small but pivotal role in 1960's Portrait In Black, playing the Asian housekeeper Tani (whose every appearance was accompanied by a flourish of "Oriental" music).

R28 The article in your link sounds suspiciously wacky.

I can't name more than 3 "non-white actors" in leading roles in Silent Era Hollywood. To describe US film-making in the Silent Era as a "Manless Eden" is inaccurate.

She looks so much like Betty Boop in some of her early pictures. The bowed lips especially.

R31 That Portrait In Black was made by the dopey Ross Hunter who also made Thoroughly Modern Millie which has two Chinese employees named Bun Foo and Ching Ho capturing girls to be sold as slaves.

I love you R1.

The first thing I remember seeing her in was "Impact," a low-budget noir with Brian Donlevy that was aired all the time on local TV stations because it was in the public domain.

r27 is the reason the word *obnoxious* was invented.

bump

I like your take on Shanghai Express, R26. That was what I first saw of when I saw this thread.

R13, to be precise, Valentino was not Sicilian but Apulian. Probably amounted to the same thing for white bigots, though.

Is she related to the pilot Sum Ting Wong?...

Is it a rule that any thread about Asians on DL has to be overrun with childish racists? And then you have the racists praising racists like at R35. It doesn’t happen with threads of any other race.

[quote] She finished out her brilliant career

You can't have read the Wiki article if you think that broken-backed, demeaning career can be described as 'brilliant'.

So ironic that she spent her life fighting to overcome stereotypes, yet she died going the WONG way up a one-way street.

Was she related to Wayman Wong? Did she likewise champion young twink musical up and comers?