Anna May Wong was an American actress, considered to be the first Chinese American Hollywood movie star. Her career spanned silent film, sound film, television, stage, and radio. Wong left for Europe in the late 1920s, where she starred in several notable plays and films, among them Piccadilly. In 1951, Wong made history with her television show The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, the first-ever U.S. television show starring an Asian American series lead.
About Anna May Wong in brief
Anna May Wong was an American actress, considered to be the first Chinese American Hollywood movie star. Born in Los Angeles to second-generation Taishanese Chinese-American parents. Her varied career spanned silent film, sound film, television, stage, and radio. Wong left for Europe in the late 1920s, where she starred in several notable plays and films, among them Piccadilly. In 1951, Wong made history with her television show The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, the first-ever U.S. television show starring an Asian American series lead. She died in 1961, at the age of 56, from a heart attack. For decades after her death, Wong was remembered principally for the stereotypical \”Dragon Lady\” and demure \”Butterfly\” roles that she was often given. Her life and career were re-evaluated in the years around the centennial of her birth, in three major literary works and film retrospectives. She was the second of seven children born to Wong Sam Sing, owner of the Sam Kee Laundry, and his second wife Lee Gon Toy. Wong’s parents were second- generation Chinese Americans; her maternal and paternal grandparents had resided in the U. S. since at least 1855. Her paternal grandfather, A Wong Wong, was a merchant who owned two stores in Michigan Hills, a gold-mining area in Placer County, in 1853. She attended public school with her older sister at first, but then became the target of racial taunts from other students.
She became obsessed with the movie theaters and became a missing schoolgirl using missing school lunch and lunch money to go to the movies. Wong became a fashion icon and had achieved international stardom in 1924. She spent the first half of the 1930s traveling between the United States and Europe for film and stage work. Wong was featured in films of the early sound era, such as Daughter of the Dragon, Daughter of Shanghai, and with Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg’s Shanghai Express. In 1935, MGM refused to consider her for the leading role of the Chinese character O-Lan in the film version of Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. Wong spent the next year touring China, visiting her family’s ancestral village and studying Chinese culture. She paid less attention to her film career during World War II, when she devoted her time and money to help the Chinese cause against Japan. In the late 1930s, she starring in several B movies for Paramount Pictures, portraying Chinese and Chinese Americans in a positive light. She had been planning to return to film in Flower Drum Song when she died in 1959, aged 56. She left behind a husband and four children. She is survived by her daughter, two sons, two step-daughters, and a step-granddaughter, and one great-great-grandson. Her great-nephew died in a car accident in 2008. She has a daughter, Anna May Wong Liu Tsong, who was born on January 3, 1905.
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This page is based on the article Anna May Wong published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
