Wong Liu-tsong, better known by her stage name Anna May Wong, was an American movies actress who is often regarded as the very first Chinese American movie star in Hollywood and the first Chinese American actress to achieve international acclaim. Her career covered silent cinema, sound cinema, television, theatre, and radio, among other mediums.
Wong was born in Los Angeles to second-generation Taishanese Chinese-American parents. As a child, he was enamoured with movies as well as began playing in them. She appeared inside The Toll of the Sea (1922), including some of the earliest colour pictures, as well as Douglas Fairbanks’ The Thief of Bagdad during in the silent cinema period (1924).
In 1924, Wong had become a fashion symbol as well as a worldwide celebrity. Wong was among the first to adopt the flapper style. She was named “world’s finest dressed woman” by the Mayfair Mannequin Society of New York in 1934. Wong was regarded as among the most influential fashion figures of both the 1920s and 1930s.
Wong departed for Europe in March 1928, dissatisfied by that of the conventional supporting parts she grudgingly portrayed in Hollywood. She featured in numerous important plays as well as movies, including Piccadilly Circus (1929). She travelled between both the United States and Europe for movie and theatre work throughout the first part of the 1930s.
Wong appeared in early sound movies such like Daughter of the Dragon (1931), Daughter of Shanghai (1937), as well as Josef von Sternberg’s Shanghai Express starring Marlene Dietrich (1932).
After Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer declined to consider Wong for such major part of the Chinese heroine O-Lan with in movie version of Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth in 1935, she suffered the most serious setback of her career. Luise Rainer was cast instead as main lady in yellowface by MGM. According to one biographer, the decision was influenced by that of the Hays Code anti-miscegenation restrictions, which mandated that the wife of a white actor, Paul Muni (ironically playing a Chinese role in yellowface), be portrayed by a white actress.
Also Read: Who is the albino villain from 80’s action movies?
