Anna May Wong

At 56 years old, Anna May Wong has this physical status:

Anna May Wong (born W siguranta Tsong, 1905 – February 3, 1961) was an American actress and first Chinese American actress to gain international fame.

Her long and varied career spanned silent film, sound film, television, stage, and radio. Born in Los Angeles to second-generation Toisonese (Taishanese)-Chinese parents, Wong became obsessed with the films and began acting in films at an early age Weges.

She appeared in The Toll of the Sea (1922), one of the first films to be shot in color and Douglas Fairbanks' The Thief of Bagdad (1924).

In 1924, Wong became a fashion icon and had achieved international fame.

Wong departed for Europe in the late 1920s, where she appeared in many influential plays and films, including Piccadilly (1929).

She travelled between the United States and Europe in the first half of the 1930s for film and stage work.

In 1935, Wong was in films from the early sound era, including Daughter of Shanghai (1931) and Daughter of Shanghai (1932), and in Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express (1932), she was denied access to her leading role in the Chinese character O-Lan, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer refused to recommend her for the leading role in Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth's 1938 version, selecting instead the French actress Luise Rainer.

Wong spent the next year in China, visiting her family's ancestral village and learning about Chinese history.

She appeared in several B movies for Paramount Pictures in the late 1930s, portraying Chinese and Chinese Americans in a positive light.

When she devoted her time and resources to assisting the Chinese cause against Japan, she paid less attention to her film career during World War II.

In several television appearances, Wong returned to the public eye in the 1950s. Wong made history by hosting The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, the first American television show to feature an Asian American series lead.

When she died in 1961, she was planning to return to film in Flower Drum Song at the age of 56 from a heart attack.

Wong was most remembered for the stereotypical "Dragon Lady" and "Butterfly" roles she was often given for decades.

In three major literary works and film retrospectives, her life and work were re-evaluated in the years leading up to her centennial of her birth.

Early life

Anna May Wong was born on January 3, 1905, one block north of Chinatown, in a mixed neighborhood of Chinese, Irish, German, and Japanese residents, in a vibrant neighborhood of Chinese, Irish, German, and Japanese people. Liu Tsong literally means "willow frost." She was the second of seven children born to Wong Sam-sing, the Sam Kee Laundry's owner, and his second wife Lee Gon-toy.

Wong's parents were second-generation Chinese Americans; her maternal and paternal grandparents had lived in the United States since at least 1855. A Wong Wong, her paternal grandfather, owned two stores in Michigan Bluffs, a gold-mining area in Placer County. He had appeared in Chang On, a village near Taishan, Guangdong Province, China, in 1853. Anna May's father spent his youth in both the United States and China, where he married his first wife and fathered a son in 1890. He returned to the United States in the late 1890s and 1901, while continuing to assist his family in China, Anna May's mother was the first born. Lew-ying (Lulu) was Anna May's older sister and a daughter in 1905; Anna May was born in late 1902, and Anna May followed five more children.

The family lived on Figueroa Street, where they were the only Chinese people on their block, living with a mix of Mexican and Eastern European families in 1910. Wong was aided in assimilating into American culture by the two mountains separating their new home from Chinatown. She started public school with her older sister at first, but the girls were moved to a Presbyterian Chinese school after being the object of racial taunts from other students. Wong was taught in English, but on Saturdays and evenings, he attended a Chinese language school.

Around the same time, motion picture production in the United States began to shift from the East Coast to the Los Angeles area. Movies were shot on and around Wong's neighborhood. She began going to Nickelodeon movie theaters and became obsessed with the "flickers," missing school and using lunch money to attend the theater. Her father was dissatisfied with her film career, fearing that it ruined her studies, but Wong decided to pursue a film career anyway. She begged filmmakers to do her films at nine years old, earning her the nickname "C.C.C." Or "Curious Chinese Child" as it is described. By the age of 11, Wong had adopted Anna May Wong as her stage name, combining both her English and family names.

When Metro Pictures needed 300 female extras to appear in Alla Nazimova's film The Red Lantern (1919), Wong was working at a Hollywood's Ville de Paris department store. Without her father's knowledge, a cousin of his had film ties, giving her a rare job as an extra carrying a lantern.

Wong continued to act in many films, including Priscilla Dean and Colleen Moore's. Wong, a student, was born with a disease dubbed St. Vitus' Dance, which required her to miss months of class. When her father took her to a traditional Chinese medicine specialist, she was on the verge of emotional suicide. The treatments were successful, but Wong later said that it had more to do with her dissatisfaction with the methods. Wong's personal philosophy influenced other Chinese scholars, including Confucianism and specifically Taoism, as well as Laozi's teachings. The family's religious life also included Christian thought, in the form of Presbyterianism, and as an adult, she was a Christian Scientist for a time.

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 her passion. In 1931, Wong said, "I was so young when I started that I knew I still had youth if I failed," she wrote to Motion Picture Magazine: "I was so young when I began to believe in myself as an actress."

In 1921, Wong became the 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 later recalled it as the first time she had seen a mother; her appearance earned her a front photo on the British magazine Picture Show.

Wong was the first female leading role in the early Metro two-color Technicolor film The Toll of the Sea at the age of 17. The novel was based loosely on Madama Butterfly, and was written by Frances Marion. Wong was singled out for praise by a variety magazine, citing her "extraordinarily fine" performance. "Miss Wong in the spectator has all the admiration she has longed for," the New York Times said, "Miss W correspondence is unashamed." She has a challenging role, one of ten times out of ten, but hers is her tenth appearance. She should be seen again and often on film, completely unaware of the camera, with a keen sense of proportion and a stunning pantomimic accuracy.

Despite such praise, Hollywood was reluctant to produce starring roles for Wong; her ethnicity barred her from being considered a leading lady by the US filmmakers. "She established a level of fame in Hollywood, but Hollywood didn't know what to do with her," David Schwartz, the museum of the Moving Image's chief curator, writes. For instance, she spent the next few years in supporting roles that created "exotic atmosphere," such as playing a concubine in Tod Browning's Drifting (1923). Wong's growing success, film makers capitalized on her, but they relegated her to supporting roles. "Pictures are fine and I'm doing well, and I'm getting along fine," Wong said, "but it isn't so bad to have the laundry at hand so you can wait and take good parts and be independent when you're growing."

In the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks picture The Thief of Bagdad, Wong was cast in a supporting role as a scheming Mongol slave. Her brief appearances on TV attracted both viewers and critics alike, portraying a stereotypical "Dragon Lady" role. The film earned more than $2 million and helped bring Wong to the public. Around this time, Wong had an interracial friendship with Tod Browning, who had directed her in Drifting a year before.

Wong went from the family's house to her own apartment after this second leading role. Despite being born and raised in California, Wong maintained a flapper image, assuaging Americans that she was "foreign-born." In March 1924, she was planning to film films about Chinese myths, but she turned to Anna May Wong Productions; when her business partner was found to be engaged in dishonest conduct, she filed a lawsuit against her; the firm was dissolved.

Although Wong's career was Asian, she was soon found out that American anti-miscegenation rules would have barred her from revealing an on-screen kiss with any person of another race, even if the actor was a white actor. Sessue Hayakawa, the only leading Asian man in US films during the silent period, was the first Asian man to do so in American cinema. If Asian leading men were to be identified, Wong could not be a leading lady.

Wong continued to be given exotic supporting roles that followed the growing "vamp" stereotype in cinema. In two 1924 films, she starred indigenous peoples. In The Alaskan, she portrayed an Eskimo on filming location in Alaska. She returned to Los Angeles to perform the part of Princess Tiger Lily in Peter Pan. Both films were shot by cinematographer James Wong Howe. Peter Pan was more fruitful, and the Christmas season was a hit. In a manipulative Oriental vamp role in the film Forty Winks, Wong was singled out for critical praise over the next year. Despite such glowing reviews, she became more dissatisfied with her casting and began looking for other avenues of success. Wong and the remainder of the group returned to Hollywood in early 1925 as part of a group of serial stars on a tour of the vainville 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 for its historic ceremony in 1926, she was not allowed to leave her hand- and foot prints in cement. Wong appeared in The Silk Bouquet for the first year in the same year. The Dragon Horse, a play on The Dragon Horse (1927), was one of the first US films to be made with Chinese assistance, provided by San Francisco's Chinese Six Companies. During the Ming dynasty, the tale was set in China and featured Asian actors playing the Asian roles.

Wong continued to be credited with support positions. The Asian female characters in Hollywood tended to two traditional poles: the nave and self-sacrificing "Butterfly" and the sly and deceitful "Dragon Lady." Wong performed "Dragon Lady" in Old San Francisco (1927), a gangster's daughter, directed by Alan Crosland for Warner Brothers. In Mr. Wu (1927), she played a supporting role as the stigma against mixed-race onscreen couples slowed. This occurred in The Crimson City, which was announced the following year.

Tired of being both typecast and passed over for leading Asian character roles in favour of non-Asian actresses, Wong left Hollywood in 1928 for Europe. Wong played "I was so tired of the parts I had to play" when Doris Mackie of FilmNE in 1933. "There seems to be little for me in Hollywood," she explained. "Producers like Hungarians, Mexicans, and American Indians for Chinese roles."

Wong made a name for herself in Europe by appearing in films including Schmutziges Geld (aka Song and Show Life, 1928) and Großstadtschmetterling (Pavement Butterfly). Wong was "not only recognized as an actor of transcendent talent but also as a natural beauty," according to the German critics' reaction to Song. The article noted that Germans passed over Wong's American roots: "Berlin writers, who were unanimous in praise of both the actor and the film, failed to mention that Anna May is of American origins. "They only talk about her Chinese roots." She appeared in Vienna as the female lead in the opera Tschun Tschi in fluent German. "Fräulein Wong had the audience with her presence and the unobtrusive tragedy of her acting was deeply moving, with the difficult German-speaking part being carried out with a flourish," an Austrian critic wrote.

Wong became an inseparable friend of director Leni Riefenstahl while in Germany. Marlene Dietrich and Cecil Cunningham, for example, became close friends with several women over her lifetime, leading to rumors of lesbianism, which damaged her public image. These reports, in particular, regarding her possible friendship with Dietrich, have only made it worse for Wong's family. They had long been opposed to her acting career, which wasn't viewed as a fully respectable occupation at the time.

Basil Dean of London performed A Circle of Chalk for Wong, her first stage appearance in the United Kingdom, with Laurence Olivier. Wong sought vocal tutoring at Cambridge University, where she trained in received pronunciation, despite criticism of her California accent, dubbed by one critic as a "Yankee squeak." Composer Constant Lambert, who had been obsessed with the actress after seeing her in films, attended the performance on the first night and created Eight Poems of Li Po dedicated to rivers.

In 1929, Wong's last silent film, Piccadilly, became the first of five British films in which she had a lead role. In the United Kingdom, the film caused a sensation. Gilda Gray was the top-billed actress, but Variety said that Wong "outshines the actor" and that "from the moment Miss Wong dances in the kitchen's rear, she steals the word "Piccadilly" from Miss Gray. Despite the fact that Wong was in his most sensuous role of the five films yet, she was not allowed to express her white love interest and a controversial planned scene involving a kiss was cut before the film was released. Piccadilly was then restored by the British Film Institute, after being forgotten for decades after its debut. Richard Corliss of Time magazine names Piccadilly Wong's best film, and The Guardian claims that this film and Wong's participation in it have been responsible for the actress' resurgent appearance.

Wong spent time in London and 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 she parted. The Flame of Love (1930), Wong's first talkie, was recorded in French, English, and German. Although Wong's appearance — particularly her treatment 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 caught their eye and was given a job with Paraphrasedoutput in 1930. She returned to the United States with the promise of lead roles and top billing. The wealth and education she acquired during her time in Europe culminated in a starring role in On the Spot, a comedy that ran for 167 performances and which she would later film as Dangerous to Know. Wong refused to use stereotypical Japanese demeanors in her portrayal of a Chinese character. Rather, she used her experience 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 outside the Figueroa Street house. The family stayed at the house until 1935, when Wong's father returned to China with Anna May's younger brothers and sister. Anna May had been paying for the education of her younger siblings, who changed to China, who put their education to use. In a short article about Wong's father's disappearance of his mother, he wrote a short article for Xinning, a magazine published in Taishanese, in which he expressed his admiration for his beloved daughter.

Wong accepted another stereotypical role in his film Daughter of the Dragon (1931), with the promise of appearing in a Josef von Sternberg film. Wong played in his last stereotypically "e shutter Chinese" role, as well as her one starring appearance alongside Sessue Hayakawa, the country's oldest well-known Asian actor of the period. Despite being granted the lead role in the film, this status was not reflected in her paycheck: she was paid $6,000, but Hayakawa was paid $10,000, and Warner Oland, who appeared in the film for 23 minutes, was only in the film for 23 minutes, was paid $12,000.

Wong began making political speeches late in 1931, for example, she wrote a scathing review of the Mukden Incident and Japan's subsequent invasion of Manchuria. She's also been more vocal in her calls for Chinese American rights and better film roles. In a 1933 interview with Film Weekly titled "I Protest," Wong criticized the negative stereotyping in Daughter of the Dragon, saying, "Why is it that the screen Chinese is always the villain?" And a crude villain—a tiger on the grass! We Quick are not like that. How can we be, with a history that is so many times older than the West?

In Sternberg's Shanghai Express, Wong appeared alongside Marlene Dietrich as a self-sacrificing courtesan. Multiple commentators and fed rumors about the two actors' friendship have referred to her sexually charged scenes with Dietrich. Though contemporary reviews honed in on Dietrich's acting and Sternberg's direction, film historians today say that Wong's performance outshadowed Dietrich's.

Wong's career had long been mixed, and she was less favourable to her appearance in Shanghai Express. "Paramount Utilizes Anna May Wong to Produce a Photo to Disgrace China" began a Chinese newspaper, "Although she is lacking in artistic representation, she has done more than enough to demonize the Chinese race." Wong's on-screen sexuality has spread negative stereotypes of Chinese women, according to Chinese critics. The Nationalist government's most vocal critique of Wong was not always in favor of the actress, but Peking University granted the actress an honorary doctorate in 1932. According to recent reports, this was possibly the first time an actor had been so lauded.

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 most beautiful Chinese girl" in 1934, a year after the World's best-dressed woman was voted "The World's Best Dressed Woman" in 1938 Look magazine named her "The World's Best-dressed Child."

Wong's Hollywood career returned to its old routine after her success in Europe and a prominent role in Shanghai Express. Helen Hayes was voted out of the leading female role in The Son-Daughter over by 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 corrupt Chinese general (1933), Wong was supposed to play a mistress to a dishonest Chinese general, but the role was switched to Toshia Mori.

Wong returned to the United Kingdom, where she stayed for nearly three years. She toured Scotland and Ireland as part of a vaudeville exhibition in addition to appearing in four films. In 1935, she was also a participant in the King George Silver Jubilee program. Java Head (1934), although mainly regarded as a minor effort, was the first film in which Wong kissed the lead male character, her white husband in the film. Graham Russell Hodges, Wong's biographer, explained that this could be the reason why the film remained one of Wong's personal favorites. Wong was in London with Mei Lanfang, one of Beijing's most popular performers. Mei had long been interested in Chinese opera, and she was able to guide Wong if she ever returned to China.

Pearl Buck's books, particularly The Good Earth, as well as increasing American sympathy for China in its war against Japanese imperialism, opened up possibilities for more positive Chinese roles in American cinema in the 1930s. In June 1935, Wong returned to the United States with the intention of starring O-lan, MGM's lead female character in MGM's film adaptation of The Good Earth. Since its 1931 debut, Wong had announced her intention to appear in a film adaptation of the novel; and Los Angeles newspapers are touting Wong as the right option for the role.

However, the studio never really considered Wong for the role. The Chinese government has also advised the studio not to use Wong in the role. "Anna May again loses the Chinese ambassador to MGM because she appears in a film."

According to Wong, she was instead offered Lotus, a deceitful song girl who assists in the demise of the family and seduces the family's oldest son. "I'd be extremely grateful if you let me play O-lan," Wong told MGM head of production Irving Thalberg. But you're asking me to do the only unsympathetic part in the picture depicting an all-American cast portraying Chinese characters."

The role that Wong aspired for was Luise Rainer, who received the Best Actress Award for her work. Mary Liu Heung Wong, Wong's sister, appeared in the film as the Little Bride. "One of the most notorious instances of casting discrimination in the 1930s" is MGM's refusal to include Wong for this most high-profile Chinese characters in a U.S. film.

After the disappointment of losing her place in The Good Earth, Wong announced 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 offer to teach her, she wanted to learn more about the Chinese theatre and into 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 said in the San Francisco Chronicle. On my arrival, I may well feel like an outsider. I may find my previous life to have a dreamlike quality of unreality."

Wong, who was born in January 1936, recalled her experiences in a collection of articles published in U.S. journals including the New York Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Examiner, and Photoplay. Local reporters, ever curious about her personal life, asked if she had wedding plans, to which Wong replied, "I am wedded tooraşului." On the following day, however, Japanese newspapers reported that Wong was married to Art, a wealthy Cantonese man.

Wong's travels in China continued to be heavily mocked by the Nationalist government and the film industry. She had trouble in several areas of China because she was raised with the Taishan dialect rather than Mandarin. Later, she said that some of the Chinese varieties of Chinese sounded "as strange to me as Gaelic." "I had the strange pleasure of speaking to my own people through an interpreter," says the author.

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 awaiting crowd, who then became adamant. "Down with Huang Liu-tsong, the stooge who disgraces China," one individual yelled. Do not let her go ashore. A yellled as a result of the riot, and a stampede ensued.

The situation cooled before she left for a short trip to the Philippines, and Wong and her family welcomed her family in Hong Kong. Wong spent his childhood and his first wife at the family's ancestral home near Taishan, China, with her father and her siblings. According to conflicting reports, she was either warmly welcomed or met with hostility by the villagers. She spent more than ten days in the family's house and some in neighboring villages before beginning her tour of China.

Wong, who returned to Hollywood, reflected on her time in China and her time in Hollywood: "I am positive that I would never play in the Chinese Theatre." I have no interest in it. It's a sad shame for Chinese people to be refused by them because I'm 'too American' and American producers are 'too American,' and because Chinese Americans prefer other races to act Chinese parts. In 1938, Wong's father returned to Los Angeles.

Wong made a string of B films in the late 1930s to bring an end to her Paramount Pictures work. The films, although often dismissed by commentators, gave Wong non-stereotypical roles that were widely promoted in the Chinese-American press for their positive photographs. These smaller-budgeted films may have been more bold than the high-profile ones, and Wong used this to her advantage to portraying strong, educated Chinese-American characters.

These characters, who were enthusiastic and proud of their Chinese roots, defyveled against the common American film stereotypes of Chinese Americans. In contrast to the common official Chinese condemnation of Wong's film roles, the Chinese consul to Los Angeles gave his approval to the final scripts of two of thesetägliche films, Daughter of Shanghai (1937) and King of Chinatown (1939).

Wong's Daughter of Shanghai was the Asian-American female lead in a role that was rewritten for her as the story's heroine, rather than the more passive one planned. The script was so carefully planned for Wong that it was given the working title Anna May Wong Story at one point. When the Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2006, the director said it was "more accurately Wong's personal vehicle than any of her other films."

"I like my part in this film better than any I've seen before," Wong told Hollywood Magazine, "I like my part in this picture better than any I've ever had before... because this picture gives Chineses a break—we have sympathetic parts for a change." That, to me, is a good deal." "An unusually good cast saves the film from the wretched consequences of certain inevitable banalities," the New York Times wrote a generally positive review focusing on its B-movie roots." [The cast] [...] combine with effective sets to minimize the natural odds against any pictures in the Daughter of Shanghai tradition.

Wong was rumored to marry her male co-star in this film, childhood friend, and Korean-American actress Philip Ahn had rumors about him in October 1937. "It will be like marrying my brother," Wong said.

Bosley Crowther was not so generous to Dangerous to Know (1938), which he described as a "second-rate melodrama" that was hardly deserving of the cast's talents. Wong, King of Chinatown, was a surgeon who sacrificed a high-paying career in order to dedicate her energies to supporting the Chinese people combat the Japanese invasion. Frank Nugent of the New York Times gave the film a critical review. "... Paraphrasedoutput: Although he praised the Chinese for his war against Japan, he wrote, "Pardoned us and its cast members... the danger of being bothered with such folderol."

In the film In Disputed Passage, Paraphrasedoutput: In addition to Dorothy Lamour, Wong was also a mentor to other actors, such as Dorothy Lamour in her role as a Eurasian. Wong appeared on radio several times, including in Pearl Buck's "Peony" on Orson Welles' The Campbell Playhouse in 1939. 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 and Australia in the 1930s and 1940s.

The Chinese Benevolent Association of California recognized Wong for her efforts in favor of Chinese refugees in 1938, after she auctioned off her movie costumes and donated the funds to Chinese assistance. United China Relief contributed to the preface's writing in 1942 to a book called New Chinese Recipes, one of the first Chinese cookbooks. She starred in interviews and appearances in favour of the Chinese war against Japan between 1939 and 1942, instead participating in protests and appearances in favor of the Chinese war against Japan.

Wong travelled to Australia for more than three months in 1939, being sick of the negative typecasting that had engulfed her throughout her American career. At the Tivoli Theatre in Melbourne, she was the star attraction in a vain 'Highlights from Hollywood' exhibition.

In 1941, Wong attended many socialite functions at the Mission Inn in Riverside, California.

Wong appeared in Bombs over Burma (1942) and Lady from Chungking (1942), two anti-Japanese propaganda produced by the poverty row studio Producers Releasing Corporation. She donated her income for both films to United China Relief. In that the Chinese were portrayed as heroes rather than as victims rescued by Americans, the Lady from Chungking differed from the standard Hollywood war film in that they were depicted as heroes rather than as victims rescued by Americans. Even after the Japanese capture American characters, the heroes' main aim is not to liberate the Americans but to discourage the Japanese from entering Chongqing (Chungking). Also, in another interesting twist, the Chinese characters are portrayed by Chinese-American actors, while the Japanese villains, who are mainly played by Chinese-American actors, are acted by European Americans. With Wong making a toast for the birth of a "new China," the film concludes. Both the Hollywood Reporter and Variety gave Wong's role in The Lady from Chungking praise, but critiqued the film's plot.

During theflexibel presidential race in 1952, Wong, a Democrat, was enthusiastic of Adlai Stevenson's campaign.

Wong spent time in Hollywood investing in real estate and owned a number of houses. "Moongate Apartments" converted her home on San Vicente Boulevard in Santa Monica into four apartments, which she referred to as "Moongate Apartments." She was the apartment house manager from the late 1940s to 1956, when she and her brother Richard moved to Santa Monica with their brother Richard on 21st Place.

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 as a small part of a B movie called Impact. Wong appeared in a detective series written specifically for her, DuMont Television Network's publication The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, in which she played the title role in which she used her birth name. Wong's character was a wholesaler in Chinese art whose career involved her in detective work and foreign intrigue. From 9:00 to 9:30 p.m., the ten half-hour episodes were broadcast during prime time. Despite having plans for a second season, DuMont decided against it in 1952. There are no copies of the show or its scripts that are known to exist. After the completion of the series, Wong's health began to deteriorate. She suffered 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 Chinese documentaries to be narrated entirely by a Chinese American. Bold Journey, a broadcast on ABC Travel Channel Bold Journey, consisted of a film clip from her 1936 trip to China. In addition, Wong appeared on television shows such as Adventures in Paradise, The Barbara Stanwyck Show, and The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp.

Anna May Wong was a film actress in the 1960s. She was the first Asian American actress to be honoured with this award. Dorothy Dandridge (African American), and Mae West are among the four supporting pillars of the "Gateway to Hollywood" sculpture on Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, with actress Dolores del Ro (Hispanic American), larger-than-life (White American).

In 1960, Wong returned to film in Portrait in Black, starring Lana Turner. With one press release a woman who appeared to have been passing down to Wong by her father's false proverb, she soon found herself stereotyped: "Don't be photographed too much or you'll lose your soul," a refrain that would be embedded in several of her obituaries.

Wong had intended to appear as Madame Liang in Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song, but she was unable to attend due to her health problems. Anna died of a heart attack while sleeping at home in Santa Monica, two days after her last screen appearance on television's The Barbara Stanwyck Show in an episode called "Dragon by the Tail." (Wong had appeared in another story in the same series the previous year.) 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, Anna May (on the right), and her sister Mary (on the left) along the sides.

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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.

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