Remember Anna May Wong, the first Chinese movie star in Hollywood? She should have won an Oscar
As movie stars like Brad Pitt and Parasite director Bong Joon-ho celebrate their recent Oscar wins, let’s not forget Anna May Wong, the first Chinese actress to wow Hollywood
When we talk about the Chinese actresses who have achieved international recognition, the following names spring to mind: Nancy Kwan in The World of Suzie Wong (1960), Joan Chen and Vivian Wu in The Last Emperor (1987), Gong Li in Red Sorghum (1988) and Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). More recent blockbusters can elevate Fan Bingbing, Li Bingbing and Jing Tian to that select group.
The roll-call of Chinese actresses stretches all the way back to 1919 when a 14-year-old girl appeared as an extra in Hollywood movie Red Lantern. Anna May Wong is considered the very first Chinese-American to appear on a Hollywood screen, and the first to enjoy international fame.
Wong made 50 films during her career, was a fashion icon and enjoyed such popularity that she graced movie magazines in North and South America, Europe, Australia, China and Japan. In another era, she would probably have won an Oscar.
Sadly, she remained a controversial figure, largely overlooked by film historians and the Chinese-American community because her roles were often embarrassingly stereotypical.
Hollywood played on her “American Orientalism”, while nationalist and later communist China criticised her for not portraying Chinese women in a positive light.
Wong, who was born in Los Angeles in 1905, was a third-generation Chinese-American. Her grandparents had lived in California since the gold rush in the mid 19th century.
Growing up in Los Angeles, she grew to love the cinema from an early age, and earned the nickname CCC, or curious Chinese child, as she constantly begged filmmakers to give her a role in their productions.
After starting her acting career as an extra, Wong finally got her wish when she was 17. She was chosen to play the leading role in one of the earliest movies to be made in colour, The Toll of the Sea (1922), in which she acted as a Chinese woman, named Lotus Flower, who was spurned by her white lover and finally jumped into the sea and drowned.
