Anna May Wong: Death of a Trailblazer

demand in your boyhouse. In the movie, both actresses play women of ill repute, but it was Wong's performance that was publicly denounced by the Chinese media for bringing shame on her race. The government has offered a price of his capture live or did that was the movie that took my breath a way that she was just unapologetic. You better get out of him. I just killed anime. Wong had already run a gauntlet of social and legal obstacles to become Hollywood's very first Chinese American star. She

was extremely beautiful. She was what today we would call a fashionista. Even so, she was usually consigned to playing either the self sacrificing lotus blossom or the devious dragon lady. She always had to die. It always had to be dramatic, and it always had to be very tragic. The blood is mine, the hate is mine, the vengeance shall be mine. Hollywood's censorship code prohibited her from even kissing any mail co star who was white. She herself was quoted in

one interview, no film lovers can ever marry me. If they got an American actress as lant her eyes and eyebrows and where a stiff black wig and dressed in Chinese culture, it would be all right. But me, I am really Chinese, so I must always die in the movies so that the white girl with the yellow hair may get the man. But in Shanghai Express, she didn't die, and the movie itself killed at the box office, becoming

the highest grossing film of the year, and anime. Wong was already being talked about as the lead for one of the biggest epics Hollywood would make. The Good Earth, based on the smash hit and novel of the same name, was the vehicle Wong had been waiting for. If cast, it would propel her into the first rank of film actresses. Everybody in Los Angeles knew that this was gonna be the biggest movie ever. That her name was even being mentioned was a sign of how far she'd come. So

who was Annime Wong? I do think that Annime Wong just had certain star quality. She seemed to be very comfortable in her skin. And here she is being comfortable in her own skin when there's no one who looks like her on screen. That's the thing that is really hard to imagine, because she was a true pioneer in that she couldn't look to anyone and say, I want to be like this person. She really had to forge her own path. From CBS Sunday Morning and Simon and Schuster,

I'm Morocca and this is Mobituaries. This Anname Wong February third, one, Death of a Trailblazer. So I was in my mid twenties, pretty new to New York, and I was taking a workshop on auditioning for musical theater. The teacher assigned me a comedic number called the Butler Song from a long forgotten musical Who's Calling Please, Oh, Miss Garble. It's sung by a butler who's explaining why his master can't come

to the phone. No, he can't call you back at five at five thirty humps Alice as he proceeds to mention pretty much every screen goddess from Hollywood's Golden Age, Ben Gina Hallow. At seven May were steppin Leven and somewhere me. The song is basically one long sex joke. It's funny in a pre met two era kind of way. Carol One. Anyway, some of the names I knew, so I didn't. The one that really popped out Anna May Wong. Her name was so melodic it had to be made up.

In fact, she was given the name Lute Song when she was born in Los Angeles. It means frosted yellow willow. At that time, Ellie's population of immigrant and American born Chinese was about three thousand, but the young girl was very much a minority within a minority. It's about one woman for every twenty men. Yeah, you've described it. I think as a bachelors society was considered a bachelor society. Lisa c is the best selling author of On Gold

Mountain about her own Chinese American family. Not many children, not many little girls, so these little girls were seen as very precious. There were all kinds of rules about girls, you know that. Well, they shouldn't be seen on the street, they shouldn't be seen with their bear arms. And legs. They shouldn't learn to rule escape, They shouldn't bicycle. The second of seven children born to Sam Sing Wong and his wife Lie Gone Toy, she was soon going by

the name Anna, Hi, Welcome, Nice to meet Martinez. Amy Wong Martinez is the daughter of Anime Wong's youngest brother. She was born after her famous aunt died, but she grew up in a house filled with her memorabilia. She would do these little holiday cars. She would have them made up. It's really beautiful, greetings from my country and my people. And Anime Wong, Anime's father, that would be Amy's grandfather, was a laundryman. It really wasn't a laundromat

with the machines. It was of course him doing laundry by hand. And it was one of the skills that the Chinese could do, a Chinese man could do because it was viewed as female work, and so it wasn't really a threat to other men for him to set up business like that. And it was in Chinatown, just outside just a few blocks, it turned out from Chinatown, but that short distance proved crucial in shaping her outlook.

Here's historian Shirley Limb author of anime Wong performing the Modern Does that make a difference to you thing in terms of her experience. Absolutely. A lot of her father's customers were not people of Chinese descent, so she's grown up interacting with Mexican Americans, European Americans, people outside of Chinatown. And as she was growing up, the motion picture industry was moving to Los Angeles, and young Anname had a front row seat to all the action. She's seen movies

on the street. She would deliver laundry bundles and she'd save up the tip money to go to the movies herself. It's so evocative, it really is, like so many young American women of her generation. Going to movies was in a way to escape, to dream, to think about the future, to think about oneself. And although Annam was a third generation American, if you were Chinese, you couldn't sit in the main part of the theater. You had to sit

up in the balcony. So she would take whatever money she had, you know, buy a ticket, go sit up there in the balcony as a very young girl, and then to think, oh, I want to and to do this. You know, she's sneaking out right she's sneaking out, and it's a pretty big family. She has brothers and sisters, so she's sneaking out, going to the movies, going to be on movie sets. Amy Wong. Martinez's mother, Carol Wong, says that growing up, Anna May had a key ally ole.

Models really know every time was she's doing, she's protecting, and she sometimes don't even go to school and go see a movie. The mother, no, but the father don't know. From what you understand, Anime's mother kind of was really backing her up. Yeah, but Annime Wong's father was less than pleased with his daughter's show business ambitions. Here's what she said to one newspaper reporter, as read by actress Jennifer Limb. My father objected so strongly to my desire

to appear in pictures that we were all ill. Mikeah, little mother. Let us fight it out, and in the end I won. It was the first great battle for my career. As a teenager, Anname found work as an extra, then got bit parts, and when she was just seventeen years old, she starred in the silent film The Toll of the Sea, Hollywood's first technicolor movie. It was a take on the Madam Butterfly story, but set in China

instead of Japan. She plays Lotus Flower, a young girl who rescues an American who washes up on the shore of her village. They marry, she has his child, and he promptly abandons her, only to return to her village with his new Caucasian wife. A heartbroken Lotus Flower gives up their son before drowning herself. And that's how pretty much any movie that saw an Asian ingenue finding love with a white man had to end with the Asian

woman dying. But as hokey as the plot may sound to us today, Anime Wong, it's really good in it. As opposed to so much silent film acting. Her performance is modern in its restraint, communicating so much with simple looks. Her eyes are so big and expressive. Variety called her an exquisite crier, and I have to say her ability to cry on que and look beautiful while doing it is Demi Moore in Ghost Level good. And remember she

was just seventeen. How significant was it that her first starring role was in a very traditional role and Toll of the Sea, So movie audience is probably assumed she was Chinese born, that maybe she didn't even speak English. Yes, absolutely, people could read so much into her because it is a silent film and at the time people could read her as Chinese, not American. Anime followed up that traumatic turn with a supporting role in the epic The Thief

of Baghdad the star Wars of its day. Audiences were wowed both by the movie's special effects it ends with a swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks flying off on a magic carpet, and by the sensuality of anime Wong's scheming and scantily clad Mongol slave girl character. I watched the scene where Anname is confronted by a shirtless, knife wielding Fairbanks with

comedian Margaret Choe. She's like, really in that classic um Carrie Fisher job of the hut outfit slave Leah, and she would fit in right in a comic cotton today perfect. I mean in the nineteen twenties, I mean, people in audiences must have been like, it's racy, it's very sexy, very revealed. He's like, he's all bronze adopted shirtlets and muscular, and she's she's in this little bikini but it's slave

La early adopter slave La outfit. She looks great and the hair is very strange, so these weird wire braids. I asked Amy and Carol Wong about Anime's appearance in the movie. It's kind of racy. Yes, it's very sexy. She can pull it off. She certainly can pull it off to We know what her own parents thought of that. Well, Oh, father, I don't know what the thing. I think maybe a little bit sick. Was ashamed Lisa. She explains why Anime's father might have felt ashamed in Chinese culture actors, in

particularly women who are acting. It seems like being a courtisan, like being a prostitute. It has these very very low connotations to it. It's not somebody you'd want to have over for dinner, and actresses on a spectrum with a courtisan with the prom to r well, because of what they do. You know, if you think of courtesan's as playing instruments, is singing, is dancing, they do other things too, but they are these kind of entertainers. But there was

no putting the genie back in the bottle. Soon Anime Wong was rubbing shoulders with Charlie Chaplin and silent film start Norma Talmadge at the groundbreaking of Gramin's Chinese Theater. But after her early on screen successes, she was only getting offered marginal roles as an exotic Oriental, and so when an opportunity to work in Europe presented itself, she jumped at the chance. In America, they wouldn't starve me because they said they could never find enough stories for me.

I am not limited to Chinese parts. I can play any type of oriental or even eskimos. When Anime Wong could not get the roles that she wanted to get in Hollywood, she goes off to Berlin. In Europe, she learned to speak German and French and acted in both languages. It's been most interesting to master what formerly seemed like an impossibility, but we sometimes even surprise ourselves at what we can do. The yep, that's Anime Wong singing in German.

During her time overseas, she cemented her status as an international movie star and as a fashion icon. Throughout her career, she'd be photographed by her friend Carl van Vakten, gamely playing with different looks and attitudes, dressed in a tuxedo, or with hair dyed blonde, or with barely any clothes at all. She was extremely beautiful. She was what today we would call a fashionista. You know, she was dressed

like no one else. She had her special, you know, Harris style, which was imitated by many people, including Edith Head, costume designer. One of her biggest successes during these years was in a British film called Piccadilly, playing a nightclub dishwasher who becomes a star. It was another slinky Chinese vamp roll. Still, one reviewer wrote, from the moment Miss Wong dances in the kitchen's rear, she steals Piccadilly, and while in London she acted on stage opposite a young

Laurence Olivier. Reviewers panned her American accent, but what she does she hires elocution accent coaches so that she can adopt this upper crust world English British accent, which then enables her to transition to the talkies. I cannot, I cannot tell him anything you like, say what you win? I do not care. I shall not go yes. Long before Madonna got herself an English accent annime, Wong had one. Now that we're here. You do not regret. You don't

talk nonsense. I think it, and you believe that I came because I love you, that I did not just wish to be free like a bad woman who gives herself for a price and by paramount. Pictures came calling, As The l A Times reported, Annime Wong Oriental actress came back to Hollywood with an English accent. When your husband left you, you will inform you where he was going. No, but I fancied was on a matter of business. He

was a man very precise in his heavens. When midnight came and there was no sign of him, I became rather along. Midnight should be a lad hard for him. It wasn't just her accent that made her sound distinctive. Her voice also had a weight and a depth to it that allowed her successfully to make the transition to talkies when so many other silent film stars were well silenced for good. Yes, so unlike all my previous conceptions of the Chinese, you've always thought of us as wearing

pig tails and with eyes like too slip. I am afraid that's true. You still think of us as a caricature. That's fifty years ago. Now, Anime Wong, they have been coming back to America an even bigger star. But America was still a country that denied full rights to any citizens of Chinese descent. Here's some background on that. Only a half century before, the Chinese Exclusion Act two became the first law in American history restricting members of a

specific ethnic group from entering the United States. That act virtually ended legal immigration from China. It was part of the backlash to the influx of Chinese immigrants who came to America during the Gold Rush and to provide cheap labor during the building of the Transcontinental Railroad. A fear of the so called Yellow Peril soon gripped America, with newspapers hysterically warning of the economic and moral danger posed

by these invaders. Here is author Lisa c Again that people saw Chinese sas dirty, They're going to pollute our women, they eat strange things, and then the Big three gambling, opium, and prostitution. Not surprisingly, violence against the Chinese spread a across the country. They were loaded onto rafts and sent a drift into the ocean. In Rock Springs, Wyoming, they were literally just burned out of the Chinatown in Tucson, tied to the backs of steers and sent into the

desert to die. And in eighteen seventy one in Los Angeles, eighteen Chinese laborers were lynched by an angry mob. This wasn't ancient history in animas time. Well into the twentieth century, Chinese Americans faced limits on property ownership. Anime Wong may have been a star in Hollywood, but she wasn't allowed to buy a house in Beverly Hills, and anti miscegenation laws in many states prohibited marriage between whites and people

of other races, including Asians. There were states that had laws against Chinese and white people marrying in here in California, that law lasted until and then there were the travel restrictions whenever she would leave the country, and she was a huge traveler, and she went to Europe, she went to Asia, she went to Australia. If the rest of my stay in Australia will be as pleasant and happy as today has been, I know that I shall enjoy

every moment of it. To the many Chinese who are listening in May, I say that Monicog every time she left the country, and every time she came back into the country, she'd be interrogated. Yes, any time Americans of Chinese descent wanted to travel overseas, they had to apply for re entry into the United States to prove that they were indeed Americans. Is it almost though, like she was an American citizen with an asterisk? Yes, I think

that's true. Hollywood's censorship rules reflected the law of the land. The Haze Code of formalized the rules prohibiting kissing or even the hint of romance between white's and non whites that Annime Wong had faced earlier in her career. Back then, you weren't even allowed to kiss a white man on screen. By the time I was acting. When I was a young woman, I remember saying to my husband, I just want to do one job where I don't have to

kiss someone. Rosalind Chow played Corporal Maxwell Clinger's South Korean wife Soon Lee in the sitcom's Mash and Aftermash, Why not take it easy? Stay home? Take it easy at all? All I do is clean this place. Robbed the ball. Yeah, but that's on your hands and knees, not on your feet. You're jeus. And she was one of the stars. In hit film The Joy Luck Club, a landmark for Asians in Hollywood, Chow's character Rose was married to Ted, a white man played by Andrew McCarthy. It's our house, we

agree the seller. You're not taking my house, you're not taking my daughter, You're not taking any part of me. It's the kind of role Anime Wong wasn't allowed to play here. She is a leading lady. She's not allowed to kiss a white co star. That's like fighting, really with both hands tied behind your back. If you're trying to make a career as a leading lady, sex symbol

and leading lady, it's um. It's quite the magic act that she was able to bring a certain sensuality and and wait to the screen and never be able to express it with a co star. Are you going to marry him? Perhaps someday, but you don't love him. I certainly do, but you are not in love with him. I certainly am Me thinks the lady does protest too much. Come on, I don't trust people who quote Shakespeare so glibly, and Hollywood always seem to have new ways of reminding

anime of her status. I made a test at Metro Golden Mayor Studios for the leading role in The Son Daughter the Chinese played David Blasco produced years ago with Leonore Ulrich. I guess I look to Chinese to play a Chinese because I hear Colleen Moore is going to do it. Although no definite decision has been made, Colleen Moore didn't get the role. It went to Helen Hayes, and for the record, neither actress was Chinese. Anime did

lend a hand during the production. Here's Shirley Lamb. So there's actually this really interesting photograph of Anime Wong on the MGM set teaching a Chinese handshake. You're kidding? So that she ended up? Me? Boy, that's that's a sport. There were one, and she's not in the not in the movie. She's just essentially helping them portray an Asian person. To be clear, Hollywood was producing movies with Asian characters, some of them big lead even romantic characters, but the

best of those roles weren't going to Asian actors. You may not know the name Warner Land. He was a Swedish actor and tens of millions went to the movies to see him as detective Charlie Chan hasty acquisition like long shot on horse race. Odds good, but chances doubtful. He also played the evil Foo Man Chew in Daughter of the Dragon in the twenty years, I have thought to live the thought of killing you and your son

has been my dearest nurse. What's called yellow face was donned by him and many actors you probably have heard of, Mary Pickford, Edward g. Robinson, Peter Laurie, Marlon Brand, Marna Loyd, Rita Moreno. Even John Wayne wore yellow face when he played Genghis Khan. I share your taste in women, but not in blood. And here's Katherine Hepburn as a jade tan dragon seed. How can I Jim Missy when he was signed to kill I'll be Killed nineteen sixty ones

Breakfast at Tiffany's, I Am Rod and otherwise beloved. Classic is marred by Mickey Rooney's yellow faced portrayal of Mr yuni Oshi all the time with disturbance, I cannot see. I got to get to my arrest. I'm a daughters. Don't be angry with dear little man. I won't do it again. The practice lasted well beyond then, but Back in the early nineteen thirties, Annime Wong was in a category of her own Chinese American yes, but a bona

fide star. So when MGM decided to adapt pearl Les Bucks Pullitzer Prize winning novel The Good Earth, Anime Wong finally saw a role worthy of her talent. Everybody in Los Angeles knew that this was going to be the biggest movie ever two million dollars MGM Los Angeles's Desert Hills transformed into rice patties, and it was supposed to be made in a way that resonated with the American Depression era audiences, so a very sympathetic and positive betrayal

of Chinese peasants. The film version of the family struggles of Wang Long and his wife O Lan was anticipated in much the same way that Gone with the Wind would be later in the decade, and the casting of the movie was a saga all its own. Early on in The Los Angeles Times hinted that Anna May Wong was a lock to play Olan. She would, of course, have to be cast opposite an Asian male to conform

with the production code. Two years later, the paper reported the Good Earth compass now points very strongly towards anime Wong Here's actress Rosalind Chow again. I tried to look for her screen test for it, because legend has it that it was phenomenal. But then by the end of n four, gossip columnist Luella Parsons reported that Wong refused to make any more tests for Good Earth or any other pictures, just to prove she can look Chinese. As anime told Parsons, I know I look Chinese, and so

does everyone else. Her fate was sealed when Austrian actor Paul Muni was cast as the male lead. Ultimately, Louise Reiner, who was born in Germany and raised in Austria, was as all On from all appearances, Ms Reiner is definitely set for the part of all On No use bucking up against a stone wall. Reiner was Hollywood's newest sensation. She was considered a great actress. But have I mentioned she was Austrian, a small cash, a kind you throw away.

He is starving. When Paul Muni landed his role, he reportedly said, I'm about as Chinese as Herbert Hoover. My father knew years of famine, but he kept the land. I must keep it from my sons. Anime was invited to audition for the supporting role of Lotus, the younger second wife of Wanglong, but studio notes described the then thirty year old as quote a little disappointing as to looks. I have to sit here shutting if I start, they whisperon looked at me hatefully. That role went to actress

Attilli Losh, strangely enough, another Austrian. This is a year's long saga, and Anime Wong, I mean, this is the brass ring. This is the thing that's gonna make her the star that she deserves to be. If you must be able to empathize with that absolutely From Anime Wong's point of view, it must have just been heartwrenching because at that point she wasn't an on genue anymore, and she had already made a name for herself. But that wasn't enough to overcome the ignorance and racism of that era.

I guess. The movie opened to rave reviews in seven presented an Academy Award for the Best Performance of nine Working Good. Her Louise Reiner went on to win an Oscar for her performance. Had Anime Wong received one of the leading roles. She would probably still be a household name today. It was a crushing disappointment, but Anime Wong wasn't about to throw herself into the ocean. Now Here is the reason why I have been so interested in

Anime Wong for so many years. So instead of crying, sitting on her ass, sulking, going woe is me, she made her first and only trip to China. Historian Shirley Limb is describing how Anime Wong responded after she wasn't

cast in the Good Earth. She hides the cinema bographer and actually ends up making her own film about China, which is a Chinese American woman's perspective on China versus MGMs Hollywood Hollywood Chinese version of the Chinese peasant in her film about China, which she narrated, My first address in China was the Cafe hotel, where I'm greeted by

relatives friends. Anime Wong learns Mandarin. She goes for a fitting for a traditional Chinese dress called the chung Sam, and the next stop is r Lookdong Chung, who takes a piece of string and it ties a knot for each measurement. Now how you can tell which not is whatnot? I know not. She's quippy, She's funny. The countryside is very much like the Philippines and parts of California, many palm trees, papayas, mangoes. Another as a Chinese, always believing

planning something gives them something to eat. And she visits her father, who had moved to China after Anime's mother had died in a car accident. This is one of my favorite pictures of my father. He was so happy that day to be surrounded with his family from the West in the east. There's a lovely shot in the documentary where she sort of walks off into the sunset

with her father. I like to compare it to Gone with the Wind with um, you know, Scarlet O'Hara and her father looking over the plantation fields at Tera with you know, the sun's setting. You can almost hear the music swell, yes, I hear it, I hear it. Although I've been to many many places in the world, this first and only trip I made to China was the most meaningful. But she wasn't received as warmly China as

she may have hoped. At one banquet, she was publicly excoriated by a series of speakers for the image she had projected of Chinese womanhood. They made speeches that lasted for four hours. They all took turns berating me for the roles I played. Since I didn't speak Mandarin, I had to answer them in English. I told them that when a person is trying to get established in a profession, she can't choose parts. She has to take what is offered.

I said I had come to China to learn, and that I hoped I would be able to interpret our country in a better life. It probably didn't help that she was single. From virtually the start of her career, she had been asked if and when she planned to get married. I try not to think of romance or marriage. If love comes to me, I shall take it to my family and see what they think. But I hope

that it will not come for a long time. I hope that I shall make a great success first, that I shall have enjoyed my career and provided for my family. She was rumored to have had affairs, but she never did marry Lisa. She points out that any realistic prospects were complicated by those anti missigenation laws. If she follows the law, who's out there that's at her level. She could marry a Chinese man, right, and who's at her level? There are a few Chinese who are doing well, but

not very many. I mean, so what are the other options then? Is she really going to marry a laundryman like her father? Is she going to marry somebody who washes dishes in a restaurant? So it's not like there were many sort of peer to peer people that she

could marry within the Chinese community. But I think even beyond that, what would have been expected of her as a Chinese wife to live in conclusion, to not be seen on the street, to have a lot of children and babies, and that I don't think was going to be for her. Here's Amy Wong Martinez again. Can imagine her honey breakfast is ready. Her ability to have to strive for her career and make a career. I think that was more of a priority for her than finding

true love or traditional marriage. When she returned to the US, she found better roles in b movies. Gee, I'm sure glad that's over, doctor Lyn. I don't know how you're doing here. I am checking like a general plugging an't even trembling. The first thing you've got to learn is not to let your hands tremble if you want to be a good surgeon. In the King of Chinatown, she plays a surgeon, a rarity for an actress of any race at the time. It's amazing. He's still alive. He

had to live. Do you know him personally? No, he was just another emergency. And in Daughter of Shang Hi, a terrific movie, she and an FBI agent played by Korean American actor Philip On helped break up an illegal smuggling operation. Let the authorities handleistmas Quan. I've seen how the authorities handled things. Press great excitement and arrest is expected in a few days, and in a few days

everything is forgotten until someone else is murdered. And despite her mixed experience in China, when Japan launched an attack on China in seven anime, Wong threw herself into fundraising on behalf of the beleaguered Chinese. She was quite political, what today we would call an activist, but at that

time was pretty rare. When Japan invades China in the lead up to World War Two, the rest of the world really didn't care too much, but she cared, and the Chinese American community cared, and so she was one of the big fundraisers. She traveled all around the country raising money. Then after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

in December of nine, China's plight became America's cause. Anime contributed her talents to propaganda films like Bombs Over Burma and The Lady from Chung King, where she played the part of the Chinese heroine Battle of the ruthless Japanese bow. You cannot kill. You cannot kill China. Not even a mini deaths could crush the soul of China. We shall live on until the enemy is driven back over scorched land and hurled into the sea. And she visited with

American troops across the country. We had genuine American chop suey and the mess hall for lunch. Today. I nearly disrupted the service when I pulled out my chopsticks. During one wartime Christmas, she made a tour of air bases in Nebraska, and all the boys were so appreciate that it really did something to my moral too. Spent the time having mess with the boys and visiting sick cases in hospitals, and made a brief address in the camp theater.

Two of the camps had large troops of colored soldiers, and they have their own canteen, theater and mess halls, at which basis I made a double tour. So when Madame Chang Kai Shack, the charismatic wife of Chinese nationalist leader Chang Kai Shack, came to Hollywood to raise money for the war effort, it seemed a no brainer that America's most famous Chinese American would be included in the star studded fundraiser. Huge throngs pack Hollywood's famous Bull to

see and hear Madame Shan. On April four, a record crowd of thirty thousand gathered at the Hollywood Bowl. Henry Fonda and Spencer Tracy gave introductory remarks. Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Shirley Temple, and Ginger Rogers stood for the American and Chinese national anthems. Chinese American soldiers probably serve as guards of honor, and then Madam Chang delivered a forty five minute address pleading her country's case and thanking America for

its leadership. We shall not permit aggression to raise its satanic hay and threaten men's greatest heritage, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Won't So what role was given to anime Wong? They didn't invite her, right, they didn't invite her. And this goes to sort of China's view of anime. So if you think of her, first her own family that could be proud of her for her accomplishments, but also a little embarrassed about her for the nudity in some of the roles she played in China, you

have the same thing on a much larger scale. So people they were kind of proud of her, but at the same time they felt she was perpetuating negative stereotypes about Chinese women in particular. That must have been humiliating, humiliating, humiliating. She lays a lot of money for them, and I also sees I know she was very hard. My husband told me about that. This is Carol Wong again. She was married to Anim's late brother Richard for almost fifty years.

She says he was very hard, but she said nothing he can do about that. But she had told your husband about being disappointed about the Hollywood bawl. Yes, he can see it too, you know what can he do? I guess it's comfortable each other. But she never let the bottle once more. Anime Wong soldiered on along her singular path. With the advent of television, anime Wong saw

new opportunities. A lot of female film stars, as they got older in the nineteen fifties, began to participate in television shows as a way to recycle their acting careers um television in Hollywood. That was the way that she was able to still remain in the public eye. In one she starred in The Gallery of Madame Lute Song, making her the first Chinese American to star in a TV show. The show aired on the Earstwhile Dumont Television Network.

No footage survives since the network's archive was dumped into the East River in the nineteen seventies, but the reviews survived, and they weren't pretty. One reads it is suspected that even if ms. Wong were given a sound script, she would still sound like an attractive Oriental girl who has been thoroughly americanized. That's a weird critique because you're basically saying why aren't you more foreign? That's sort of like, well, what do they even know about what it means to

be Chinese? Margaret Show has some experience with those kinds of criticisms. She followed in Anime Wong's TV footsteps when she became the second Asian American woman and the first Korean American to headline a series when the sitcom All American Girl premiered on abcne so tell me about the reel you Okay? Well, for one thing, when I hear a joke, I don't do this, hey, I laughed more like this. In her case, she turned out to be too much of an All American Girl for some in

the Korean American community. When I was doing All American Girl, it was very difficult because the Korean community in America had just been through the l A Riots, and so they were hyper concern, hyper aware of their public image. They wanted to really strictly control what was being said

about them. And so when I came along as a very foul mouth comedian, as a woman, as um, you know, somebody who was talking about gay rights, somebody who was talking about sexuality, it really destroyed this sort of image of what Koreans had of themselves, and so it was very difficult to get their support. All American Girl was

canceled after one season. Um, I don't know if you can reduce it to this, but when you did the sitcom, did you feel more pressure from the Korean side or more pressure from, let's call it the white American side. I think that I was just caught. Caught certainly describes Anam A Wong. It seems that when she wasn't too Chinese, she wasn't Chinese enough. Still, she kept on hustling for work. Now as a character actress. Here she is as China Mary in an episode of Wyatt earp. They have broken

the law and they must be punished. They will be in my way. I cannot agree to that. Then find them yourself. By the nineteen fifties, she was well past her Hollywood prime, but she wasn't alone. She was part of a tight knit Chinese American community in Los Angeles. Did your father play poker? Whether My dad used to go over and play poker. He was a teenager, you know, and he'd go over to the apartment in Santa Monica and they'd play poker, and they they drink Lisa Ce's

grandparents and parents were friends with Anime Wong. My dad. When I called him the other day to say we were doing this, he was like, oh, yeah, you know, way used to go over there. And I'd say, well, you know what happened then, and said, oh, I don't know. We were drinking so much. I don't remember. It was a fun place for him, and he'd go over with his buddies and she always had room at the table and they play poker and get drunk. But Anime's health

was beginning to falter. Letters she wrote to her dear friends. Carl van Beckton, the same man who had photographed her years before, and his wife, Vannia Maronoff, suggests she was suffering from liver disease, perhaps cirrhosis. My doctor insisted I come here to rest and continue treatments until a complete recovery is affected. He said, the eight pints of blood they poured into me at the hospital was just a temporary crutch to tide me over, and he wasn't going

to dig me out of the grave again. They have done a great deal of thinking while laid up, and I'm going to overcome the habit of worrying all the time about things that are not worth the bother with best love always anime. She was in and out of hospitals during that decade, sometimes for lengthy days at a time when money was tight. The hospital and sanitarium expenses were pretty steep, so in between times, I'm still trying to dispose of a few pieces of good jewelry to

pay off everything. Owing in her letters, she's increasingly introspective, even spiritual. Have you buy any chance read a book that came out last year, The Power of Positive Thinking. I have read it several times and find that it is a great help in many ways, especially reading oneself of nervous tensions and having the right attitude towards what appears to be colossal problems. At home, her youngest brother, Richard, Amy's father watched over her and fiercely guarded her privacy.

My daddy actually was really one of the closest relatives to her and took care of her, especially in her later years. He had informations and stories and knowledge about her, but he never wanted to expose that because he was afraid that it would be taken the wrong way or used in the wrong light. Amy and her mother Carol, share some details of Anime's home life. Nobody know a lot of knitting, A lot of knitting, h Na, my husband. I'm still keeping. That's kind of a big deal to

knit a sweater. And she obviously was a dial icon. So this sweater is a handmade knitted sweater. But we still have it. Have you worn it? Know? What color? Was a sweater that she met. Carol married Richard in and when their two daughters were born, they named them Anime Wong and Amy May Wong. Luckily I did escape the curse of possibly being April May Wong. Ineen sixty, Anname Wong played a supporting role in Portrait and Black

with Lanta Turner. For these past few days, you've been acting rather strangely in what way I feel have been deliberately avoiding me, of course, not ms Kevin. I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. It was praised as a lovely comeback role, and she wrote to her friends with some exciting news. Dearest Fania and Carlos ross Hunter, the producer of Portrait and Black, told me he has just purchased film rights to Flower Drum Song and that I am to play one of the leads, but this

will not go into production until February. Continue to keep well and happy and interestingly occupied, Bless you both love Anime hundred Media Miracle. Flowered Drum Song, The Rogers and Hammer's nine musical set in San Francisco's Chinatown. You can't have a new way You're living till you're living all the way on that Avenue would feature a predominantly Asian American cast. Here's Rosalind Chow again. The Flower Drum Song

was another first. It was another landmark, much in the way that Joy Luck Club was a landmark and crazy rich Asians Chop Sue Chop Sue you and flower drums song in that song, Chop Suey. The fact that they rhyme nuclear war with Shasha bor welldr song and the fact that you remember that is even funnier to me. Those lyrics are fantastic, but we should point out if you didn't know this, you know one need a haul

for father was African American, her mother was white. Ended up playing the role I always forget the name of the role, the antileon Anti Leon, and that role was going to be played by anime Wong Oh I didn't know that when Annime Wong died, or did she die or oh, oh my goodness, I had no idea. So she died just before she could have had this big break. Anime Wong died of a heart attack on February third,

at the age of fifty six. Her New York Times habituary hailed her as one of the most unforgettable figures of Hollywood's greatest days. Again, Carol and Amy Wong. She was that a new code. My husband's he's gone to work. When he come home, he found passed on and she was reading the Squiret. She was in the scrap the when when she died. It's hard done to think what a great comeback that would have been for her. See,

we're doing a great job on death. I wonder what she would have done had she lived past fifty six. I mean, that's so young. In the decades after she died, as a civil rights movement raised consciousness among Asian Americans, Anime Wong wasn't celebrated. Lisa se says she once again became a source of shame. I think she was blamed for a lot of the stereotypes that then continued to exist. These kind of iconic things that she had set up, you know, one the temptress and the other this sort

of the dragon lady. And people saw her as the person who created those stereotypes. But today she's remembered as someone who boldly went where no one had before. She became a star without any role models. As a young girl, she sat in the balcony of a movie palace, looked at the silver screen and imagined a place for herself. I want to thank the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Walk of Fame Committee. In May two thousand nineteen, Lucy Lou became the second Asian American actress to have

a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I truly feel humbled. In her remarks, Lou paid homage to the first Annime Wong so a hundred years ago. She was a pioneer. While enduring racism, marginalization, and exclusion, we could actually start our own little Chinatown right here, from silent pictures to the talkies on stage and then on TV. Through sheer force of will, charisma and talent, Anname Wong became a first and for an astonishingly long time. Wasn't

only she did it? And she did it despite everything that was going on around her. I think in many ways it was a lonely life, but she also surrounded herself with wonderful friends. I think she paid a price in life and then in death, and now it's just nice to see this kind of acknowledgement and recognition for really what she accomplished. I certainly hope you enjoyed this Mobituary. May I ask you to please rate and review our podcast.

You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca. You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Ka Limb. Our team of producers also includes Megan Marcus and me Mo Rocca. It was edited by George posit Irak and engineered by Dan Dezula. Indispensable support from Gideon Evans, Genius Dineski, Sam Egan, Richard Roarer,

and everyone at CBS News Radio. Special thanks to David Henry Wong, B. D Wong read Orvid All, Leslie Leong and the f Suie One Company, and to the great Jennifer Limb who voiced the words of anime Wong for us. Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart and as always, undying thanks to Rand Morrison and John Carp without whom Mobituaries couldn't live. Hi, It's mo. If you're enjoying Mobituary Reads the podcast, may I invite you to check out Mobituaries the book. It's chock full of stories not in

the podcast. Celebrities who put their butts on the line, sports teams that threw in the towel for good, forgotten fashions, defunct diagnoses, presidential candidacies that cratered whole countries that went to put and dragons, Yes, dragons, you see. People used to believe the dragons were real until just get the book. You can order Mobituaries the Book from any online bookseller, or stop by your local bookstore and look for me

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