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AIA Time Line
A brief outline of Asian American history.

Main Gallery
A growing collection of images documenting the life and history Asian Pacific America

Internment of Japanese Americans
Selected National Archives photos of the "evacuation" of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Anna May Wong
Hollywood starlet from the golden age of movies.

By Yiuwing Lam, March 2005

Anna May Wong, An Asian American Pioneering Star.

If you were asked: Name the biggest Asian- American star in Hollywood who also lit up the silver screen in Europe and hosted her own TV show in America, whose name would pop up in your head? Stuck? Don't be too discouraged; most people don't remember her either. Her name was Anna May Wong and she was one of biggest stars in the world during the 1920's and 40's. Anna May, whose storied career spanned over five decades, starred in over fifty films as well as having her own television show, "The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong". All this from a woman whose humble beginnings started in a small Laundromat in Chinatown.

Born as Wong Liu Tsong on January 3, 1905 in the Chinatown district of Los Angeles, California, Anna May was the second of eight children for Toy and Sam Wong, a laundryman. Following Chinese tradition, Anna and her siblings all helped out with the family business but Anna May's passion was the movie business. "We were always thrilled when a motion picture company came down into Chinatown to film scenes for a picture," she recalled in 1926. "I would worm my way through the crowd and get as close to the cameras as I dared. I'd stare and stare at these glamorous individuals, directors, cameramen, assistants, and actors in greasepaint. And then I would rush home and do the scenes I had witnessed before a mirror. I would register contempt, shame, reproach, joy, and anger. I would be the pure girl repulsing the evil suitor, the young mother pleading for her baby, the vamp luring her victim."

Her radiant beauty landed her a job as a photographer's model when she was just 14 and her connections to the movie business via her cousin, James Wong, one of a few Chinese actors in early Hollywood, got her a bit part in the 1918 film, DINTY. Anna May's appeal was already catching Hollywood's eyes as well as her cousin's. "Your eyes are large and your features stand out clearly. There is no reason you should not make good if you are willing to work hard. You will do," he said to her. Bolstered by his support, she went on to get bit parts in two big films, SHAME and BITS OF LIFE.

At seventeen, her career got a big break when she was tapped to star in Technicolor's first two- strip color film, THE TOLL OF THE SEA in 1922 which attracted the eye of Douglas Fairbanks Sr. who immediately signed her to play the Mongol slave girl in his silent 1924 classic, THE THIEF OF BAGDHAD. Even though her performance was lauded with much acclaim and fanfare that made her the first ever Chinese American celebrity, one thing still held her back: the political climate in America.

Various federal and Supreme Court orders forbade the Chinese to own real estate, to become naturalized citizens, and miscegenation laws enacted in 13 states, including California, criminalized marriages between whites and Chinese. Thus if the law stated that it was criminal for Caucasians and Chinese to have interracial relationships then Hollywood was intent on not breaking it which meant that even though Anna May was becoming one of Hollywood's brightest commodities, she could never kiss her leading man and more importantly, star in a Hollywood movie where she wasn't playing the stereotypical Oriental mistress.

In a scene from IMPACT with Korean American actor Phillip Ahn.

Undeterred, she set off for Europe where she found not only a more liberal political atmosphere toward Asians, but also international fame starring in German director Richard Eichberg's SHOW LIFE in 1928. She also starred as Shosho in 1929's PICCADILLY and appeared as herself in Andre Charlot and Alfred Hitchcock's 1930's ELSTREE CALLING. Later, she lit up the London stage co-starring with a young Laurence Olivier in Basil Dean's The Circle of Chalk.

The success of her European films and her budding international stardom caused Hollywood to come knocking again and this time Paramount Pictures signed Anna May to a multi picture deal which led to roles in DAUGHTER OF THE DRAGON in 1931 and Josef von Sternberg's SHANGHAI EXPRESS in 1932 with Marlene Dietrich. As World War II descended upon the world, Anna May saw her star fading as audiences escaped to other escapist fares and Oriental melodramas which was all Anna May could find herself parts in, quickly became a fancy of the past.

In 1951, Anna May achieved a ground-breaking accomplishment for an Asian American actress by starring in her own television series, "The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong". She also made guest appearances on other popular television series. The 1950's also brought Anna May to China where she devoted a lot of her energies to the China war relief. But sadly, Anna May found herself to be more of a lightning rod for criticism than a role model for Chinese success in America. "It's a pretty sad situation," she said, "to be rejected by the Chinese because I am too American."

Anna May Wong appeared in a few other films before she passed away quietly in her Santa Monica home on February 3, 1961. She not only left behind an impressive Hollywood career that spanned over five decades of film roles and television appearances but she also left behind a legacy of being one of the first truly successful Asian Americans to embody the living symbiosis of the term, Asian America. Not only did she live out the American dream of starting from humble beginnings to become an international screen star but in the process, she still kept her traditional Chinese roots close to her by putting her family ahead of her stardom. Anna May still lived at home and kept her father's books even while working full time in the movies.

Anna May Wong may not be as widely recognized as she once was during her Hollywood hay days in the 1920's- 40's but she will always be remembered as a strong-willed pioneer who ignored formal and informal laws of discrimination to forge the most successful movie career of any Asian American of the first half of the 20th century.

Sources: Anna May Wong: The Queen of Chinese Mystery Productions! by Denny C. Jackson, The British Film Institute's Collections & Archives, and Anna May Wong Did It Right by Richard Corliss.