Anna Could Wong and the thriller of Hollywood’s first Chinese language-American star: ‘They wished to tear her aside!’

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Anna Could Wong was Hollywood’s first Chinese language-American star, a gifted actor who refused to permit racism and sexism to stymie her profession. She was one of many silent period’s hottest celebrities, however was usually forged in demeaning roles: girls who had been minxy and unique, or doomed, sly and treacherous. Wong was attractive, willowy and insouciant (when it comes to physique sort and perspective, Wong’s modern-day equal can be Zendaya). However Hollywood’s studio heads had been “blinded by their very own prejudice”, says Katie Gee Salisbury, the creator of a brand new autobiography of the star. The ebook particulars how Wong set off for Berlin, and later London, looking for extra nuanced roles.

The gamble paid off. The European movies Wong made within the late Twenties – Tune, Pavement Butterfly and Piccadilly – are politically provocative and superbly lit, all of them place her centre stage. In close-up photographs, her incessantly anguished eyes resemble melting scoops of ice cream. Hollywood, by now making talkies, obtained the message. Upon her return to the US, she was supplied (if solely grudgingly) higher components. Within the 1932 basic Shanghai Categorical, Wong is a sardonic and fearless intercourse employee who enjoys the corporate of a libidinous gal pal, performed by Marlene Dietrich. The pair’s chemistry is the stuff of legend.

However a supposed affair between them, Salisbury says, is simply one of many narratives surrounding Wong that she wished her biography – titled Not Your China Doll – to problem. Video-calling from her condominium in Brooklyn, New York, Salisbury tells me that the numerous biographies of the star already in existence fail to seize the true Wong. For starters, they had been all written by males, they usually all push a idea “that, to me, sounds extra like male fantasy than the reality”, Salisbury says.

It provides her no pleasure to place the file, ahem, straight in the case of Wong’s sexuality. “I feel it’s superb how she’s been embraced by the queer group and I hate to be the one who says, ‘Er, I don’t suppose that she was!’,” she laughs. “However there simply isn’t something to corroborate it.”

Which is why Salisbury “disagrees” with Graham Russell Hodges and Yunte Huang, the authors of two earlier Wong biographies. “They bring about up rumours about Wong and Marlene Dietrich having an affair,” she says. “They ask ‘Did Anna Could Wong have affairs with different girls?’ As a girl, I’m a bit suspicious of individuals projecting these concepts of affairs, based mostly on one photograph of Wong, Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl. Based mostly on that photograph everybody decides, ‘Ooh, possibly they’re all sleeping collectively!’”

Salisbury describes Hodges’ 2004 ebook (Anna Could Wong: From Laundryman’s Daughter to Hollywood Legend) as “very dry” and factors out that Hodges is “Caucasian American – he didn’t develop up in Asian tradition, so he’s it as an outsider”. She provides that whereas Huang – whose ebook, Daughter of the Dragon, was revealed 9 months in the past – “is Chinese language, he’s additionally an immigrant to this nation, to the US. His understanding of what it’s prefer to be Asian American, to have been right here for a number of generations, is somewhat bit completely different. He doesn’t have that perspective.”

Salisbury was born in California and raised by a Chinese language-American mom, which she says gives her with specific perception into Chinese language-American id and parentage. “I’m coming to this,” she declares, proudly, “as an insider.” That is mirrored in her ebook, which frequently hones in on Wong’s twin id. Anna Could Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong in 1905, renaming herself “Anna” on the age of 11. Each of the star’s mother and father had been born in California, and anticipated their daughter to develop as much as grow to be a dutiful Chinese language spouse and mom. She was decided to carve out her personal future, although. “Don’t suppose that I stray from my heritage calmly,” Wong as soon as wrote. “It’s one thing I take into consideration loads. Am I taking the fitting path?” This uncertainty fascinates Salisbury. “She is aware of that is one thing she has to do – whether or not it’s one thing her mother and father need or not.”

Wong notably scandalised her household in 1930, by not attending her mom’s funeral and selecting to proceed work in a Broadway play – if she had returned dwelling, she’d have been changed within the present. Touchingly, her father saved her mom’s physique in a vault till Wong was capable of fly to Los Angeles. Later, in 1936, the pair put apart their variations and went on a tour of Chang’an, his ancestral village in China. They had been adopted by a documentary movie crew, employed by the usually media-savvy Wong.

As Salisbury discusses this go to she immediately stops. Visibly upset, she places her hand over her coronary heart. “You see them strolling arm in arm via the countryside and he was so joyful,” she says. “It’s laborious. Wong’s conflicts together with her father simply remind me a lot of my very own relationship with my Chinese language-American mom. Speaking about Asian mother and father and expectations makes me get somewhat emotional… I really feel I do know very personally a few of the issues that Anna Could felt. It’s laborious to elucidate to folks how one can be in battle along with your mum or dad however nonetheless love them.” Salisbury’s eyes nicely up. “It is vitally emotional as a result of you already know that they need one of the best for you, however your definitions of what one of the best is are very completely different.”

Salisbury factors out that, throughout the identical journey to China, Wong was additionally underneath fierce strain from the Chinese language press. In one of many ebook’s most gripping chapters, Wong arrives on board the SS President Grant, solely to have a mysterious, discombobulating encounter with a fellow passenger. Because of this, Wong fumbled all the following glad-handing, alienating the gang of press and well-wishers to such an extent that there was a mini-riot (somebody cried, “Down with Wong Liu Tsong – the stooge that disgraces China”). Wong was overwhelmed. All involved obtained to see the usually poised Hollywood film star lined in “tears and snot”.

“It provides you a way of the inconceivable expectations that had been put upon her,” says Salisbury. “Folks felt that she represented all of China. She was meant to humble herself, to present credit score to her heritage. The press, throughout this go to, had been so imply. They mentioned issues like, ‘Whether or not Anna Could Wong may be counted as Chinese language continues to be a query.’ They wished to tear her aside!”

Simply to be clear, America was at all times a hostile setting for Wong. Even after her return from Europe, she continued to be marginalised by Hollywood, getting handed over for components that went to white actors in yellowface. Display screen kisses with white co-stars had been additionally forbidden. Off display, she was reminded at each flip about who she may and couldn’t marry. “Miscegenation, inter-racial marriage,” notes Salisbury, “was solely made authorized, in California, in 1948”. It may very well be completed, however Wong’s fame made that possibility tough. “For Wong to have married somebody of one other race would have prompted a publicity frenzy.”

Wong was conscious of all these cultural tensions and infrequently wove them into her work. As a part of a cabaret act that she carried out all through Europe in 1933, Wong sang the tune “Half Caste Lady” by Noel Coward. “That tune” says Salisbury, “is a couple of girl who’s half-Asian, half-white, who lives in a poor Asian metropolis and the one factor she’s good for is to be a prostitute for the international males who are available in. I feel that Wong seen herself in that manner; she was each issues and never totally accepted in both area.”

In 1940, Wong’s youthful sister Mary, who was additionally an actress, died by suicide. For varied causes, together with worries about work and cash, Wong was quickly consuming closely and, in 1953, was identified with cirrhosis. Researching this a part of the ebook, says Salisbury, was “painful”. For some time, she even hoped to seek out proof that Wong wasn’t an alcoholic – “that the medical doctors obtained it fallacious”. However no. “The smoking gun was a letter speaking a couple of disastrous get-together with pals in New York,” Salisbury says. “It was in 1955, when she was about 50. She arrived so drunk they needed to carry her out of the restaurant.” Wong died from a coronary heart assault in 1961 on the age of 56.

Nonetheless, Salisbury doesn’t wish to dwell on the negatives of Wong’s life. She’d quite concentrate on the star’s achievements. Within the late Thirties, Wong insisted on being the lead in quite a few pulpy crime thrillers, amongst them Daughter of Shanghai, the place she and Korean-American actor, Philip Ahn (her homosexual, childhood buddy), are the heroes. “Two Asian-American leads!” marvels Salisbury. “She actually flipped the script. I don’t know if anybody on the time realised how revolutionary it was.” Salisbury additionally hopes readers will fall in love with Wong’s erudition (she wrote sensible essays), her curiosity in present affairs (she was pals with the performer turned political activist Paul Robeson), in addition to her wit. Wong as soon as signed a publicity shot, “Orientally yours.”

In a deliberate biopic, Wong might be performed by Gemma Chan, however Salisbury says she isn’t positive the star’s life may be precisely represented in a standard movie. “I don’t understand how they’ll do it,” she says. “Gemma Chan is somewhat bit older. Anna Could Wong began as a young person, so it doesn’t appear sensible for Gemma to play these intervals of her life… I don’t know in the event that they’ll have a unique actress for the early years.” She’s delighted that David Henry Hwang, who wrote the celebrated play M. Butterfly, is engaged on the script. “He’s just like the foremost Asian-American playwright – I couldn’t consider a greater particular person to jot down it.” That mentioned, she doesn’t envy his job. “It’ll be very tough to condense her life right into a two- or three-hour movie. I ought to know. I had bother doing it in a ebook!”

Salisbury hasn’t obtained her personal future mapped out (“possibly I’d like to jot down about combined race id within the US”). In case you’re questioning, Salisbury’s father is Irish-American, which creates its personal points. She doesn’t, it seems, see herself as a real insider and says she’s “bracing” herself for awkward questions when she does face-to-face press. “I’m simply ready for somebody to ask me, ‘Why did you resolve to jot down this ebook in case you’re not Chinese language?’”

Salisbury’s ebook is a couple of girl who was eternally being advised she was too Chinese language, or not Chinese language sufficient. However regardless of all of the hardships she confronted, Wong at all times discovered a method to embrace her standing as an in-betweener. After you’ve learn Not Your China Doll, watch her movies. Wong Liu Tsong was her personal finest creation and – even in her silent motion pictures – by some means nabs the final phrase.

‘Not Your China Doll’ by Katie Gee Salisbury is launched by Penguin Putnam Inc