Anna May Wong the First Chinese-American Hollywood Star

Source: FineArtAmerica

Wong Liu Tsong, better known by her stage name Anna May Wong, was an American actress who is regarded as the first Chinese-American movie star in Hollywood and the first Chinese-American actress to achieve international acclaim. She was born on January 3, 1905, and died on February 3, 1961. She worked in radio, television, theatre, silent and sound films, as well as other mediums. She is the first Asian American to feature on a U.S. coin and one of the first women to be portrayed on the reverse of a quarter in the 2022–2025 American Women quarters series.

Early Life

Wong Liu Tsong, often known as "willow frost," was born Anna May Wong on January 3, 1905, on Flower Street in Los Angeles, a block north of Chinatown. She was one of seven kids born to Sam Kee Laundry owner Wong Sam-sing and his second wife Lee Gon-toy. Wong's grandparents had lived in the United States since at least 1855; her parents were second-generation Chinese Americans. A Wong Wong, her paternal grandfather, managed two shops in Michigan Bluffs, a gold-mining community in Placer County. She initially went to a public school with her older sister, but once they started to get racist slurs from other kids, they switched to a Presbyterian Chinese school.

Nearly every day, movies were filmed in and around Wong's neighbourhood. She started frequenting Nickelodeon movie theatres and soon developed an obsession with the "flickers," skipping class and using lunch money to go to the movies. Wong made the decision to pursue a career in film in spite of the displeasure her father felt about her passion for movies and how it distracted her from her education. Wong's stage name, Anna May Wong, which she created at the age of 11, was a combination of her English and familial names.

Beginning of Her Career

When Metro Pictures needed 300 female extras for Alla Nazimova's movie The Red Lantern, Wong was working at the Ville de Paris department store in Hollywood (1919). Unbeknownst to her father, a friend of his with ties in the film industry assisted her in getting an uncredited role as an extra carrying a light.

Wong left Los Angeles High School in 1921 to focus only on her acting profession because she found it challenging to balance her studies with her enthusiasm. Wong stated in 1931 that she made the decision because she knew she would still be youthful if she failed: "I was so young when I began that I knew I still had youth if I failed, so I determined to give myself 10 years to excel as an actor."

Path to Stardom

Wong, then 19 years old, was chosen to play a cunning Mongol slave in a minor part in the 1924 Douglas Fairbanks film The Thief of Bagdad. Her little screen time drew the attention of viewers and critics alike as she played a clichéd "Dragon Lady" role. The movie helped make Wong more well-known and brought in more than $2 million. Tod Browning, who had directed Wong in Drifting a year before, and they were together at this time.

Wong left the family home and into her own apartment after taking on a second major career. Despite being born and reared in California, Wong was aware that Americans perceived her as "foreign-born," so she started to cultivate a flapper image.  She signed a contract in March 1924 to establish Anna May Wong Productions with the intention of producing films about Chinese tales.

It quickly became clear that Wong's career would be constrained by American anti-miscegenation laws, which forbade her from sharing an on-screen kiss with anyone who was of a different race, even if the character was Asian but being performed by a white actor. Sessue Hayakawa was the only leading Asian male in American films during the silent era. Wong could not be a leading lady if Asian leading men could not be found.

Her Death

Due to her health concerns, Wong was unable to take the role of Madame Liang in the film adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song. Two days after her final on-screen appearance on The Barbara Stanwyck Show in the episode "Dragon by the Tail," Anna passed away from a heart attack on February 3, 1961, at the age of 56, while she slept at home in Santa Monica. At Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, her cremated bones were buried next to those of her mother. The Chinese names of Anna May (on the right) and Mary, her sister, are written along the sides of the gravestone, along with her mother's Anglicized name, which is written at the top.

Legacy

In Ryan Murphy's drama series Hollywood on Netflix in 2020, Michelle Krusiec portrays Wong. The limited series depicts a different version of 1940s Hollywood. Her life story was included as part of the PBS programme Asian Americans in 2020.

Wong was one of the first women to be featured on the reverse of a quarter coin as part of the American Women quarters series, the United States Mint announced in 2021. Wong became the first Asian-American to be shown on American currency when the quarters with her image on them went into circulation in 2022.

Written By Melita Pinto