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Anna May Wong and the British Film Industry

Chinese American actress Anna May Wong has received much scholarly attention and cult status as one of the first Asian American actresses to achieve success. A minor celebrity in the United States from late 1920s onward, Wong was not able to persuade Hollywood studios to cast her featured roles until she left to pursue film roles abroad. Her ascension to star status in England and its subsequent igniting of her career in the States became an integral part of Wong’s narrative of celebrity during the 1930s and continues even today. This article analyzes how Anna May Wong constructed her public identity as a British film actress, and seeks to identify the political, economic, and social factors that Wong negotiated during the 1930s.1 According to popular narratives about her life, Anna May Wong’s success only developed after she became a phenomenon in England and other European destinations. As an American of Chinese descent, born to Sam Sing and Lee Gon Toy Wong in 1905, Wong faced the constraints of her gender, race, and class. The Wongs—each who claimed to have been born in California—owned and operated a laundry on Figueroa Street in Los Angeles. The second of seven children, Wong sought to break away from the expectations the Chinese immigrant community held for young women, and to achieve a career in film.2 Beginning in 1919, while still attending high school, Wong began working as an extra in several silent films set in Chinatown. In 1922, she enjoyed visibility as the featured player in the first Technicolor saturated film, Chester M. Franklin’s Toll of the Sea in 1922. Although she received positive notice for her role as the Mongol Slave in Raoul Walsh’s version of The Thief of Baghdad (1924), Wong was limited to minor or supporting roles in a variety of American films. Unable to get a contract in Hollywood, Wong seized the opportunity to star in Richard Eichberg’s silent film Song (1928),even though this meant sailing for Germany. Song indeed proved an important opportunity for Wong. After starring in a second Eichberg film, Pavement Butterfly (1929), Wong was cast in feature roles for three British productions. Wong enjoyed great popularity in Europe during this time, and also starred in a Viennese operetta and a London stage play. In 1930, Wong returned to the United States and signed a three-picture contract with Paramount Studios. Paramount cast her in two mediocre thriller pictures; these did little to enhance her career. Due to the lack of opportunities, Wong again set off for Europe where she appeared on the European theatre circuit. While in England from 1933 to 1934, Wong appeared in J. Elder Wills’s Tiger Bay , Walter Forde’s Chu Chin