Anna May Wong
Anna May Wong was born in Los Angeles, California, United States on January 3rd, 1905 and is the Movie Actress. At the age of 56, Anna May Wong biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
At 56 years old, Anna May Wong has this physical status:
Early career
When Metro Pictures needed 300 female extras to appear in Alla Nazimova's film The Red Lantern (1919), Wong was working at Hollywood's Ville de Paris department store. Without her father's knowledge, a friend of his with film connections gave her a poor reputation as an extra carrying a lantern.
Wong appeared in many films, including Priscilla Dean and Colleen Moore's, for two years. Wong, a student, was born with a disease named St. Vitus' Dance, which caused her to miss months of school. When her father introduced her to a traditional Chinese medicine specialist, she was on the brink of emotional collapse. The treatments were fruitful, though Wong later said that it had more to do with her disinterest in the methods. Wong's personal philosophy had a huge influence on her life, according to other Chinese scholars, such as Confucianism and particularly Taoism and Laozi's teachings. Christian thought was also present in the family's religious life, in the form of Presbyterianism, and for a time as an adult, she was a Christian Scientist for a short period.
Wong dropped out of Los Angeles High School in 1921 to pursue a full-time acting career, finding it difficult to keep up with both her schoolwork and passion. "I was so young when I first started that I knew I still had youth if I failed," Wong wrote in Motion Picture Magazine in 1931: "I was so young when I first started to see it on television, so I decided to give myself ten years to be a star."
In 1921, Wong received her first screen credit for Bits of Life, the first anthology film in which she played Toy Ling's wife in a segment titled "Hop." She recalled it fondly as the sole time she played the part of a mother; her appearance earned her a front page photograph on the British magazine Picture Show.
In the early Metro two-color Technicolor film The Toll of the Sea, Wong played her first leading role. The tale was based loosely on Madama Butterfly and was written by Frances Marion. Wong was singled out for praise by a variety magazine, who praised her for her "extraordinarily fine" performance. "Miss Wong brings in the audience all the love she has for," the New York Times said, "she never resists one by an excess of theatrical empathy." She has a difficult job, a job that is botched nine times out of ten, but hers is the tenth best result. She should be seen again and often on the camera, completely unaware of the camera, with a keen sense of proportion and a remarkable pantomimic accuracy.
Despite such evaluations, Hollywood was reluctant to produce starring roles for Wong; her ethnicity barred her from being cast as a leading lady in the United States. "She built up a level of fame in Hollywood, but Hollywood didn't know what to do with her," David Schwartz, chief curator of the Museum of the Moving Image, writes. For example, she spent the next few years in supporting roles that added "exotic atmosphere," including playing a concubine in Tod Browning's Drifting (1923). Wong's increasing success, film producers capitalized on her, but they relegated her to supporting roles. "Pictures are fine and I'm doing fine, and I'm doing well, but it isn't bad to have the laundry out of you," Wong said, "you should wait and get good parts and be independent when you're rising."
In the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks painting The Thief of Bagdad, Wong was cast in a supporting role as a scheming Mongol slave. Her brief appearances on TV captured audiences and critics alike, portraying a stereotypical "Dragon Lady" role. The film earned more than $2 million and helped introduce Wong to the masses. About this time, Wong had an interracial friendship with Tod Browning, who had directed her in Drifting a year before.
Wong moved out of the family's house to her own apartment after this second popular role. Despite the fact that she was born and raised in California, Wong maintained a flapper image, despite the fact that Americans regard her as "foreign-born." Anna May Wong Productions was founded in March 1924, intending to produce films about Chinese myths; when her business partner was found to be infringing on her own rights, Wong filed a lawsuit against him, the firm was dissolving.
Even if the actor was Asian, Wong's career was going to be limited by American anti-miscegenation legislation, which barred her from posting an on-screen kiss with any person of another race, even though the character was white, but it was not depicted by a white actor. Sessue Hayakawa was the first leading Asian man in American cinema during the silent period. Wong could not be a leading lady if Asian leading men were discovered.
After the growing "vamp" stereotype in cinema, Wong continued to be offered exotic supporting roles. In two 1924 films, she appeared in indigenous native people. In The Alaskan, she portrayed an Eskimo on film in Alaska's territorial territory. She returned to Los Angeles to appear as Princess Tiger Lily in Peter Pan. Both films were shot by cinematographer James Wong Howe. Peter Pan was more popular, and it was the Christmas season's greatest hit. In a manipulative Oriental vain role in the film Forty Winks, Wong was singled out for critical praise. Despite such glowing reviews, she became more dissatisfied with her casting and began to look for other avenues of success. Wong and the remainder of the group returned to Hollywood in early 1925 when she joined a crew of serial stars on a tour of the vain deville circuits; when the tour proved to be a failure, she and the rest of the group returned to Hollywood.
When Wong first joined Norma Talmadge in 1926, she laid the first rivet into the Chinese Theatre's magnificent cathedral, but she wasn't allowed to leave her hand- and foot prints in cement. Wong appeared in The Silk Bouquet last year. The Dragon Horse, which was renamed The Dragon Horse in 1927, was one of the first U.S. films to be made with Chinese funding, provided by San Francisco's Chinese Six Companies. The story was set in China during the Ming dynasty and featured Asian actors in Asia.
Wong continued to be given support services. The Asian female characters in Hollywood tended to two stereotypes: the nascent and self-sacrificing "Butterfly" and the sly and deceitful "Dragon Lady" respectively. Wong played a "Dragon Lady," a gangster's daughter in Old San Francisco (1927), directed by Alan Crosland for Warner Brothers. Mr. Wu (1927), she played a supporting role in censorship against mixed-race onscreen couples, costing her the lead. This occurred in The Crimson City the year before.
Tired of being both typecast and passed over for lead Asian character roles in favour of non-Asian actresses, Wong left Hollywood in 1928 for Europe. "I was so sick of the parts I had to play," Wong told Film 2, "I was so tired of the roles I had to play." "There seems to be little for me in Hollywood," she said, because rather than real Chinese, producers like Hungarians, Mexicans, and American Indians for Chinese roles."
Wong made a name for himself in Europe, appearing in films such as Schmutziges Geld (aka Song and Show Life, 1928) and Großstädtschmetterling (Pavement Butterfly). Wong was "not only acknowledged as an actor of transcendent talent but also as a fantastic beauty," according to the German critics' reaction to Song. Germans condemned Wong's American roots, according to the book. "Berlin analysts, who were unanimous in praise of both the actor and the show, but forgot to mention that Anna May is a citizen of the United States. Only her Chinese roots are mentioned," the author says. She appeared in the opera Tschun Tschi in a tumescent German in Vienna. "Fräulein Wong had the audience in his presence and the unobtrusive tragedy of her acting was particularly touching, portraying the difficult German-speaking role with a flourish," an Austrian writer wrote.
Wong became an inseparable friend of director Leni Riefenstahl while in Germany. Marlene Dietrich and Cecil Cunningham, among other women in her lifetime, fueled lesbianism concerns that have damaged her public image. These reports, particularly those of her alleged friendship with Dietrich, have caused more concern for Wong's family. They had long been opposed to her acting career, but it was not widely accepted at the time.
Basil Dean, a London entrepreneur, brought A Circle of Chalk for Wong, Laurence Olivier's first stage appearance in the United Kingdom, and her first stage appearance in the United Kingdom. Wong requested vocal tutoring at Cambridge University, despite criticism of her California accent, dubbed a "Yankee squeak" by one reviewer. Composer Constant Lambert, who had fallen in love with the actress after seeing her in films, attended the premiere night and created Eight Poems of Li Po dedicated to her.
In 1929, Wong's last silent film, Piccadilly, was the first of five British films in which she appeared in a starring role. In the United Kingdom, the film caused a sensation. Gilda Gray was the top-billed actress, Funnel, that Wong "outshines the actor" and that "from the moment Miss Wong dances in the kitchen's rear, she steals 'Piccadilly' from Miss Gray." Despite the fact that Wong appeared in her most sensuous role out of the five films, she was not allowed to reveal her white love interest before the film was released. Piccadilly was later restored by the British Film Institute, having been forgotten for decades after its debut. Richard Corliss of Time magazine calls Piccadilly Wong's best film, and The Guardian reports that this film and Wong's participation in it have been responsible for the actress' resurrection of her image.
Wong was romantically linked with writer and broadcasting executive Eric Maschwitz, who may have written "These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)" as an evocation of his longing for her after they parted out. The Flame of Love (1930), Wong's first talkie, was published in French, English, and German. Though Wong's appearance, particularly her mastery of the three languages, was lauded, all three versions of the film received critical feedback.
During the 1930s, American studios were searching for new European talent. Wong was catching their interest, and she was given a Paraphrasedoutput job at Paraphrasedoutput: In 1930, she was offered a job with Paraphrasedoutput: Ironically, she was given a Paraphrasedoutput: She was given a P She returned to the United States after being lured by the promise of lead roles and top billing. The prestige and training she acquired during her time in Europe culminated in her debut in On the Spot, a drama that ran for 167 performances and which she would later film as Dangerous to Know. Wong refused to use stereotypical Japanese mannerisms, derived from Madame Butterfly, in her portrayal of a Chinese character. She instead used her knowledge of Chinese style and gestures to imbue the image with a greater degree of authenticity. Following her return to Hollywood in 1930, Wong has returned to the stage and cabaret for a creative outlet.
In November 1930, Wong's mother was struck and killed by an auto in front of the Figueroa Street house. The family remained at the house until 1934, when Wong's father returned to China with Anna May's younger brothers and sister. ivested to China, Anna May had been paying for the education of her younger siblings, who switched to China for their education. In an article about Wong's father's departure from the family's home, he wrote a short story for Xinning, a magazine for overseas Taishanese, in which he expressed his admiration for his beloved daughter.
Wong accepted another stereotypical role in his debut in a Josef von Sternberg film, including the title character of Fu Manchu's vengeful daughter in Daughter of the Dragon (1931). This was Wong's last stereotypically "evil Chinese" role, as well as her one in front of the country's only well-known Asian actress, Sessue Hayakawa. Despite being given the lead actress, this talent was not reflected in her paycheck: she was paid $6,000, while Hayakawa received $10,000, and Warner Oland, who appeared only in the film for 23 minutes, was paid $12,000.
Wong began expressing political views late in 1931: For example, she wrote a scathing critique of the Mukden Incident and Japan's subsequent invasion of Manchuria. She has also pushed for Chinese American causes and greater film roles. "Why is it that the screen Chinese is always the villain?" in a 1933 interview with Film Weekly, "I Protest" Wong sluggish stereotyping in Daughter of the Dragon. A snake in the grass is so crude a villain — murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass! We are not like that. How can we be, with a civilization that is so many centuries older than the West?
In Sternberg's Shanghai Express, Wong appeared alongside Marlene Dietrich as a self-sacrificing courtesan. Many commentators and feed rumors about the two actors' sexual interactions have been cited. Dietrich's sexually charged scenes have been discussed by many commentators and published rumors about their friendship. Although contemporary reviews concentrated on Dietrich's acting and Sternberg's direction, film historians today agree that Wong's appearance rivald Dietrich's was upstaged that of Dietrich's.
Wong's career had long been praised by the Chinese press, and she was less favourable on her debut in Shanghai Express. "Paramount Utilizes Anna May Wong to Produce a Photograph to Disgrace China," a Chinese newspaper headline read, "She is deficient in artistic portrayal, but she has done more than enough to demonize the Chinese race." Wong's on-screen sexuality had sparked negative stereotypes of Chinese women, according to Chinese scholars. The most vocal criticism came from the Nationalist government, but China's academics and liberals were not all hostile to Wong, as shown when Peking University gave the actress an honorary doctorate in 1932. According to modern accounts, this was probably the first time an actor had been honoured.
Wong had been recognized as a fashion icon in both America and Europe for more than a decade. The Mayfair Mannequin Society of New York named her "The World's Best-dressed Woman" in 1934, and in 1938 Look magazine, "The World's Most Beautiful Chinese Girl" was named.
Wong's Hollywood career returned to its old routine after her success in Europe and a prominent presence in Shanghai Express. She was turned down for the leading female role in The Son-Daughter over Helen Hayes; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer said she was "too Chinese to play a Chinese" in the film. In Frank Capra's The Bitter Tea of a Brute Chinese General (1933), Wong was supposed to play a mistress to a deceitful Chinese general, but the role was moved to Toshia Mori.
Wong returned to the United Kingdom, where she lived for nearly three years. She was still dissatisfied with Hollywood. She toured Scotland and Ireland as part of a vaudeville exhibition in addition to appearing in four films. She appeared in the King George Silver Jubilee program in 1935. Her film Java Head (1934), although generally regarded as a minor effort, was the only film in which Wong kissed the lead male character, her white husband in the film. Graham Russell Hodges, Wong's biographer, speculated that this could have explains why the film remained one of Wong's personal favorites. Wong spent time in London with Mei Lanfang, one of Beijing's most well-known actors. Mei had long been keen on Chinese opera, and she could have escorted Wong if she ever visited China.
Pearl Buck's books, particularly The Good Earth, as well as growing American sympathy for China in its war against Japanese imperialism, opened up possibilities for more prominent Chinese roles in American films in the 1930s. In June 1935, Wong returned to the United States with the intention of obtaining the lead female character in MGM's film adaptation of The Good Earth's. Wong had expressed her desire to appear in a film adaptation of the book long before its publication in 1931; and Los Angeles newspapers were promoting Wong as the correct option for the role as early as 1933.
Nevertheless, the studio has never seriously considered Wong for the role. The Chinese government also told the studio not to include Wong in the role. "Anna May again loses China's face," the Chinese advisor to MGM said "whenever she appears in a film."
According to Wong, she was instead offered the role of Lotus, a deceitful song girl who helps to murder the family and seduces the family's oldest son. "I will be so glad" if you let me play O-lan, telling MGM head of development Irving Thalberg, "I would be very pleased." However, you're asking me—with Chinese blood—to play the only unsympathetic role in the film depicting an all-American cast portraying Chinese characters."
Luise Rainer, who received the Best Actress Award for her role, was the role Wong wished for. Mary Liu Heung Wong, Wong's sister, appeared in the role of the Little Bride in the film. Today, MGM's decision not to consider Wong for this most high-profile Chinese characters in a U.S. film is remembered as "one of the most notorious cases of casting discrimination in the 1930s."
Following her deep sadness of losing her position in The Good Earth, Wong revealed plans for a year-long tour of China to visit her father and his family in Taishan. In 1934, Wong's father returned to China with her younger brothers and sister. Mei Lanfang's invitation to teach her, she wanted to learn more about the Chinese theater and in English translations in order to better portray Chinese plays in front of international audiences. "I will investigate the land of my fathers for a year," she told the San Francisco Chronicle. On my arrival, I may have the feeling that I am the stranger. I may find my past life has a dreamlike quality of unreality, rather than "reality."
Wong recapped her experiences in a series of articles published in U.S. newspapers, including the New York Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, and Photoplay. Local reporters, ever curious about her intimate life, asked if she had marriage plans, to which Wong replied, "I am wedded to my art." However, Japanese newspapers announced that Wong was married to a wealthy Canajungise man named Art the following day.
Wong's travels in China continued to be strongly condemned by the Nationalist government and the film industry. She had a difficult time in several areas of China because she was raised with the Taishan dialect rather than Mandarin. Some of the Chinese sounded "as strange to me as Gaelic," she later said. "I had the strange pleasure of speaking to my own people through an interpreter."
Wong's personal life was reflected in bouts of sadness and rage, as well as heavy smoking and bingeing. Wong was uncharacteristically rude to the waiting crowd, which then turned hostile, causing her to be irritable when she disembarked in Hong Kong. One individual yelled, "Down with Huang Liu-tsong—the stooge who disgraces China." Don't let her go ashore." Wong started yelling and a stampede ensued.
Following her return from a short visit to the Philippines, Wong's family returned to Hong Kong. Wong stayed with her father and her siblings at Taishan's ancestral home. According to conflicting accounts, the villagers either warmly welcomed her or met with hostility. She spent over ten days in the family's village and some in neighboring villages before starting her tour of China.
Wong reflected on her time in China and her time in Hollywood: "I am positive that I will never play in the Chinese Theatre." I have no enthusiasm for it. It's a sad muzicial situation for Chinese people to be turned down by Chinese authorities because I'm 'too American' and American producers because other races prefer Chinese characters." In 1938, Wong's father returned to Los Angeles.
Wong produced a string of B movies in the late 1930s to close her Paramount Pictures contract. The films, which were often mocked by commentators, were given to Wong non-stereotypical roles in China's public press for their positive photos. These smaller-budgeted films may have been more bold than the high-profile ones, and Wong used this to her advantage to portray wealthy, professional, Chinese-American characters.
These characters, who are both ambitious and proud of their Chinese roots, defythes the popular U.S. film portrayals of Chinese Americans. The Chinese consul to Los Angeles gave his blessing to the final scripts of two of these films, Daughter of Shanghai (1937) and King of Chinatown (1939), in contrast to the usual official Chinese condemnation of Wong's film roles.
Wong played the Asian-American female lead in Daughter of Shanghai, a role that was rewritten for her as the story's protagonist rather than the more passive character originally intended. The script was so carefully planned for Wong that it was given the working title Anna May Wong Story at one point. "More precisely Wong's personal vehicle than any of her other films" when the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2006.
"I like my part in this picture better than any I've seen before" in Hollywood Magazine, because this photo gives Chinese people a break—we have sympathetic parts for a change. To me, that means a lot. "An extremely well-balanced cast saves the film from the wretched effects of such inevitable banalities," the New York Times said generally favorable, despite its B-movie roots. [The cast] [The cast] [the cast]... work together with clever sets to reduce the natural odds against any photographs in the Daughter of Shanghai style."
The news in October 1937 reported that Wong had plans to marry her male co-star in this film, childhood friend and Korean-American actor Philip Ahn. "It's like marrying my brother," Wong said.
Bosley Crowther was not so generous to Dangerous to Know (1938), which he referred to as a "second-rate melodrama" that was hardly worthy of the cast's talents. Wong, the King of Chinatown, sacrificed a high-paying career in order to devote her energies to assisting the Chinese people in coping with the Japanese invasion. Frank Nugent of the New York Times gave the film a critical review. "... Paraphrasedoutput: While he cheered the Chinese's support for the Japanese in their war against Japan, he wrote: "Paraphrasedoutput: The danger of being bothered with such folderol" is evident."
In a contest of Passage, Paraphrasedoutput: Wong was also employed as a mentor to other actors, such as Dorothy Lamour, as a Eurasian. In Pearl Buck's The Campbell Playhouse, Wong appeared on radio several times, including a 1939 appearance as "Peony" in The Patriot's "The Patriot." Wong's cabaret performance, which featured songs in Cantonese, French, English, German, Danish, Swedish, and other languages, took her from the United States to Australia in the 1930s and 1940s.
The Chinese Benevolent Association of California honoured Wong in 1938, after she auctioned off her film costumes and donated the funds to Chinese assistance. United China Relief also contributed to the proceeds from the preface, which she wrote in 1942 to a book named New Chinese Recipes, one of the first Chinese cookbooks. She appeared in films and televisions between 1939 and 1942, instead of appearing in marches and appearances in favor of the Chinese struggle against Japan.
Wong travelled to Australia for more than three months in 1939, being sick of the negative typecasting that had dogged her throughout her American career. At the Tivoli Theatre in Melbourne, she was the star attraction in a vain battle called 'Highlights from Hollywood.'
In 1941, Wong attended several socialite functions at the Mission Inn in Riverside, California.
Wong appeared in Bombs over Burma (1942) and Lady from Chungking (1942), both anti-Japanese propaganda created by poverty row studio Producers Releasing Corporation. Both films were donated by the artist to United China Relief. The Lady from Chungking was different from the common Hollywood war film in that the Chinese were portrayed as heroes rather than as refugees rescued by Americans. Even after the Japanese captured American characters, the heroes' main aim isn't to free the Americans, but to discourage the Japanese from entering the city of Chongqing (Chungking). Also, in an interesting twist, the Chinese characters are portrayed by Chinese-American actors, while the Japanese villains, who are usually played by Chinese-American actors, are acted by European Americans. Wong makes a speech about the establishment of a "new China" in the film. Both the Hollywood Reporter and Variety gave Wong's performance in The Lady from Chungking praise reviews, but also provided scathing commentary about the film's plot.
During the 1952 presidential election, Wong, a Democrat, was in favour of Adlai Stevenson's campaign.
Wong invested in real estate and owned several properties in Hollywood later in life. "Moongate Apartments" was a term she used to describe her house on San Vicente Boulevard in Santa Monica, which she rented out. She lived in Santa Monica with her brother Richard from the late 1940s to 1956.
In 1949, Wong's father died in Los Angeles at the age of 91. After a six-year absence, Wong returned to film the same year in the B film Impact, with a small part. Wong appeared in a detective series that was specifically written for her, the DuMont Television Network's The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, in which she played the title role in which she used her birth name from August 27 to November 21, 1951. Wong's character was a Chinese art dealer whose career included stints in detective work and foreign intrigue. The ten half-hour episodes aired during prime time, from 9:00 to 9:30 p.m. Although there were hopes for a second season, DuMont cancelled the program in 1952. No copies of the show or scripts are known to exist. vaut: After the completion of the series, Wong's health began to deteriorate. She had an internal hemorrhage in late 1953, which her brother attributed to the onset of menopause, heavy drinking, and financial worries.
In 1956, Wong hosted one of the first US documentaries on China, narrated solely by a Chinese American. Bold Journey, an ABC travel show, was broadcast on ABC Travel Channel Bold Journey. The program featured a film clip from her 1936 trip to China. In addition, Wong appeared on television shows such as Adventures in Paradise, The Barbara Stanwyck Exhibition, and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.
bouche at the inauguration of the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960, Anna May Wong received a Woolfon for her contribution to the film industry. She was the first Asian American actress to be honoured with this award. She is also depicted larger-than-life as one of the four supporting pillars of the "Gateway to Hollywood" sculpture on Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, with actresses Dolores del Ro (Hispanic American), Dorothy Dandridge (African American), and Mae West (White American).
In 1960, Wong appeared in Portrait in Black, starring Lana Turner. "Don't be photographed too much or you'll lose your soul," a woman said in one press release explaining her long absence from films with a bogus proverb that was apparently passed down to Wong by her father: "Don't be photographed too much or you'll lose your soul."
Wong had been supposed to appear as Madame Liang in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song's film production, but she was unable to perform because of her health problems. Anna died of a heart attack at home in Santa Monica, two days after her last screen appearance on television's The Barbara Stanwyck Show in an episode titled "Dragon by the Tail." (Wong had appeared in another story in the same series the year before.) In her mother's grave at Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, her cremated remains were laid to rest. The headstone is marked with her mother's Anglicized name on top, the Chinese names of Anna May (on the right), and her sister Mary (on the left) along the sides, with her mother's Anglicized name on top.