If the aged Ernest Hemingway adage holds true, that courageousness equals grace nether pressure, past Anna May Wong (1905-1961) had it successful spades. Wong embodied a exemplary of however to reinvent oneself successful the look of the astir daunting societal obstacles. In my thirty-plus years of penning astir Wong, I americium continually reminded of however she remains an exemplar today.
Anna May Wong Cabaret Cross-dressing. Photo by Carl Van Vechten. Beinecke Library, Yale University. Courtesy of the Carl Van Vechten Trust.
In her time, Wong inspired a wide array of admirers. Anne Frank pasted not 1 but 2 photographs of Wong connected her chamber partition successful the concealed annex successful Amsterdam wherever she and her household hid from the Nazis during World War II. At the 1930s Harlem balls, the precise aforesaid venues that sparked today’s Tony-nominated philharmonic marvel, Cats: The Jellicle Ball, resistance performers paid homage to Wong by recreating her creation moves from her British film, Picadilly (1929). At the Royal Ascot equine races successful England, nine women besides dressed up arsenic Wong, albeit by sporting imitations of the Coolie Hat that she turned into a coveted precocious manner item.
The pressures Wong faced passim her beingness were severe. Wong was an American. She adjacent had a passport to beryllium it. But arsenic an American of Chinese heritage, her question was circumscribed by the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882-1943). Wong, alongside each different Chinese Americans, had to acquisition arduous procedures each clip she near the country. Not lone did she person to capable retired Form 430, an “Application of Alleged American Citizen of the Chinese Race for Preinvestigation of Status,” she had to ace an in-person interview. Inaccuracy oregon non-compliance could effect successful migration situation and deportation. Born successful Los Angeles, Wong should person enjoyed each privileges of birthright citizenship. But she did not. Her concern reverberates uncomfortably today.
Anna May Wong’s Form 430 April 6, 1939. Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
The database of pressures continues. The photographic grounds shows Wong arm-in-arm with galore admirers, galore of whom were her lovers. Yet, successful her location authorities of California, laws prohibited her from marrying a achromatic person, a information she decried during property interviews. In 1946, Wong, successful hunt of a caller Los Angeles home, bumped up against covenants that forbade lodging income to “Orientals” and could not find anyone who would merchantability a location to her. Fame and wealth were not capable to surmount lodging segregation.
Perhaps nary infinitesimal amended shows Wong’s grace nether unit than however she handled the casting debacle astatine the halfway of The Good Earth (1937). Wildly fashionable with the Depression-era American public, the 1931 Pearl S. Buck caller of the aforesaid sanction celebrated impoverished yet resilient Chinese peasants. Hollywood’s starring studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), intended the movie to beryllium an important one; it had been allocated 1 of the largest budgets successful cinematic history, 2 cardinal dollars. Winning the starring relation of O-lan would person catapulted Wong to the Hollywood A-list.
Wong Writing successful London. With Paul Robeson, Eslanda Robeson, S. I. Hsiung, Mei Lanfang. Photo by Fania Marinoff. Beneicke Library, Yale University. Courtesy of the Carl Van Vechten Trust.
Wong had gone connected grounds successful the Los Angeles Times that she sought the main relation of O-lan and would garbage to be a casting telephone for Lotus due to the fact that it was “the lone unsympathetic role” successful The Good Earth. Wong’s correspondence, upon which I gully to picture her life, reveals a discrepancy betwixt her nationalist words and backstage thoughts. She confided successful a missive to her champion friend, Fania Marinoff, that, since Luise Rainer had locked up the relation of O-lan, MGM had alternatively invited her to surface trial arsenic Lotus, the 2nd woman who ruins the family. As Wong disclosed: “Practically everyone, including my friends, look [sic] to consciousness that I should instrumentality the Lotus portion ‘if determination is capable wealth successful it.’” In the aforesaid letter, the pragmatic Wong divulged that, contrary to her declaration successful the Los Angeles Times, she auditioned for Lotus not erstwhile but twice.
Wong embodied a exemplary of however to reinvent oneself successful the look of the astir daunting societal obstacles.
MGM’s notes from Wong’s 2nd surface trial are shocking: “[d]eserves superior information arsenic anticipation for Lotus—[but] NOT arsenic beauteous arsenic she mightiness be.” For MGM, nary Chinese American had the close look to play a Chinese role. Lewin’s casting reports for others specified arsenic Keye Luke likewise stated that they “did not acceptable his conception of what Chinese radical looked like.” Lewin recommended that they beryllium employed chiefly arsenic ‘atmosphere’ and not arsenic main actors.” Not surprisingly, MGM nixed Wong arsenic Lotus, casting alternatively the Viennese performer Tilly Loesch. Chinese Americans, successful the hundreds and adjacent thousands, were relegated to the inheritance arsenic atmosphere.
Popular civilization has fixated connected Wong’s “failure” to onshore a starring relation successful The Good Earth arsenic launching the expected antagonistic trajectory of Wong’s life. In Netflix’s Hollywood (2020) and Amanda Lee Koe’s caller Delayed Rays of a Star (2019), Wong’s purported O-lan tryout (her letters uncover that she ne'er auditioned for that role) is misrepresented arsenic the lawsuit that permanently devastates her, pushing her into an alcohol-soaked stagnation.
Wong’s letters to Marinoff, however, uncover a precise antithetic story, 1 of courageousness and resilience. After the MGM rejection, Wong declared: “[I] consciousness a beardown inclination to transportation retired my archetypal program of going to China.” Wong was excessively excited by “my archetypal travel to the onshore of my fore-fathers” and excessively engaged to wallow successful self-pity. With breathtaking speed, a small implicit a period aft the Good Earth casting rejection, Wong near Hollywood to fulfill her lifelong imagination of visiting China.
What makes Wong bonzer is that she was not contented to witnesser China arsenic a tourist. This was not a vacation. This was work. This was Wong’s accidental to reinvent herself arsenic a journalist. During the period earlier her departure, Wong contracted with the New York Herald Tribune to constitute a bid of articles astir her travel done China. For a pistillate who stopped her ceremonial acquisition aft 2 years of precocious school, this was extraordinary. Not 1 to discarded time, Wong posted her archetypal dispatch astir the voyage portion inactive enroute to China.
Anna May Wong Behind the Camera successful China. Courtesy UCLA Film and Television Archive.
Even much impressively, Wong transformed the large situation of her full vocation into an unprecedented milestone: seizing the means of accumulation to go a filmmaker. Wong crafted a riposte to MGM’s faux China portrayed successful The Good Earth by producing a question representation astir the existent China featuring a idiosyncratic with existent Chinese heritage, herself. Before she near Los Angeles, Wong arranged to person her experiences recorded by cinematographer H.S. (Haisheng) “Newsreel” Wong (no relation). Wong starred in, scripted, directed, and produced her ain documentary astir her travels, an astonishing feat astatine a clip erstwhile Dorothy Arzner and Ida Lupino were 2 of the precise fewer pistillate directors successful Hollywood. After decades of promoting the film, Wong’s abbreviated diagnostic astir her China travel was yet aired passim the United States connected ABC tv connected February 14, 1957. Grace nether unit indeed.
Even today, Wong provides america with a roadworthy representation of however to forge up adjacent nether the astir hard of circumstances. Many of america determination otherwise successful the satellite due to the fact that who we are does not lucifer what nine values. It is my fondest anticipation that my caller publication volition amusement that we are all, successful 1 mode oregon another, Anna May Wong.
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From Anna May Wong: An Intimate Portrait by Shirley Jennifer Lim. Copyright © 2026. Available from Abrams Books.
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