Pioneering Chinese American Movie Star Anna May Wong Original Photograph 1937

Pioneering Chinese American Movie Star Anna May Wong Original Photograph 1937 (image 3/[null, null, null])

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ITEM: This is a remarkable, 1937, vintage and original Paramount Pictures photograph of actress Anna May Wong. With a sumptuous Art Deco style and serene outdoor setting, Wong is the picture of beauty, grace, and sophistication as she poses in traditional Chinese dress. This is a glamorous portrait of the pioneering movie star that was used to promote her 1937 film, Daughter of Shanghai .The press snipe reads: DOESN'T REQUIRE GILDING -- For her role in Paramount's "Daughter of Shanghai," Anna May Wong, Chinese actress wore many of her own elaborate gowns in various scenes and visited the lily pond at the studio for added embellishments.Considered to be the first Chinese American Hollywood movie star, as well as the first Chinese American actress to gain international recognition, Wong's varied career spanned silent film, sound film, television, stage, and radio.Photograph measures 8" x 11" on a glossy, double weight paper stock with A.A.C. ink stamp and typed studio text on verso.Guaranteed to be 100% vintage and original from Grapefruit Moon Gallery.More about Anna May Wong:The first Chinese-American movie star, Anna May Wong spent her life struggling against prevailing attitudes and discrimination and, in the end, proved too far ahead of her time to enjoy the career and life she deserved. Alternately considered "too Chinese" or "too American" by various audiences, Los Angeles native Wong achieved movie stardom in the first Technicolor film, "The Toll of the Sea" (1922). Frequently cast stereotypically as either a delicate victim or a menacing "dragon lady," Wong scored again in "The Thief of Bagdad" (1924) but struggled to find leading roles since law prohibited her kissing a co-star of a different race. After a stint in Europe, where she received the acclaim long denied her in America with such films as "Piccadilly" (1929), she returned home to appear in "Daughter of the Dragon" (1931) and "Shanghai Express" (1932). She suffered a major public blow when she was passed over for "The Good Earth" (1937) in favor of a Caucasian actress Luise Rainer in Asian-inspired makeup, and encountered animosity from white as well as Chinese audiences. She did go on to topline her own TV show, "The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong" (DuMont, 1951), before dying of a heart attack on Feb. 3, 1961. Immortalized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in a sculpture as one of four pioneering "Ladies of Hollywood," Anna May Wong never reached the heights her talent, charisma and beauty deserved, but remained a bit of a Golden Age cult icon whose glowing legacy grew stronger with each passing year.Born Jan. 3, 1905 in Los Angeles, Wong Liu Tsong was the daughter of second-generation Chinese-American parents. She would later take on the Anglicized name "Anna May Wong." Although she spoke flawless English and was truly an "American" in every sense of the world, she grew up in a nation and world whose laws and attitudes were extremely prejudicial against Chinese people at that time. Wong had the unique destiny of growing up not feeling that she belonged to any world: her tall height, large eyes and fierce independence caused many Chinese people to think she was "too American" while her appearance and lineage kept her "too Chinese" for many Americans. Like many dreamers and forward-thinkers who are ahead of their time, Wong was drawn to the world of the cinema. Not only would she spend as much time as she could in movie theaters seeing the finished product, she would also hang around film shoots in her native Chinatown, asking filmmakers so many questions about the process that they dubbed her "C.C.C." or "Curious Chinese Child." Frequently skipping school to feed her passion for film and disobeying her strict, traditional father, Wong broke into the business as an extra in such films as "The Red Lantern" (1919), "Dinty" (1920) and "Outside the Law" (1920). Such was the world in which Wong lived that she was forced by her father to be locked into a room alone during lulls in filming if she were the only Asian in t... read more

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