From a laundryman's child to a lonely little actor to Hollywood's first Chinese-American film actress. She is the famous Hollywood movie star Anna May Wong. Recently, Huang Liushuang will land on a 25-cent coin in 2022 through the "American Women Quarters Program". Huang Liushuang is the only Chinese-American to be selected for the program, and the first Chinese woman to be engraved with an American coin.
The U.S. Mint announced the creation of the American Women Quarters Program, which will issue up to five new 25-cent coins each year between 2022 and 2025, featuring the heads of prominent American women from different fields, ethnicities, and diverse backgrounds, including the first Chinese-American Hollywood actress, Anna Wong.
Huang Liushuang occupies a place on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is one of the five famous Chinese film stars besides Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Lu Xilin and Liu Yuling, and is the first Chinese actress to stay in Hollywood. (There are only four Chinese film stars in Hollywood: Huang Liushuang, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Liu Yuling)
Anna May Wong 3 January 1905 – 2 February 1961
Her career has been long and rich, spanning silent films, sound films, television dramas, stage plays and radio dramas.
The location is at Vine Street 1708
Racism is struggling
Born in 1905 near Chinatown in Los Angeles, Huang Liushuang is a third-generation Chinese American with ancestral home in Taishan, Guangdong. Her grandparents and maternal grandparents came to California in 1855 to pan for gold, and were the first generation of Chinese workers to go to California to pan for gold. Her parents were both native Chinese in the United States, and her father, Huang Shanxing, and her mother ran a laundromat near Chinatown. Huang Liushuang is the second eldest of eight children in the family. As a child, Huang Liushuang worked in her family's laundromat and learned to speak Cantonese. Although her family lives in a diverse community, Huang Anderson and her sister still endure racism from their classmates. As Asian immigrants came to the United States in search of jobs on the Transcontinental Railroad, xenophobia permeated the West. European and American laborers refer to this as the "Yellow Peril," and these anti-China sentiments are reinforced by racist policies such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which restricts the immigration of Chinese citizens to the continental United States.
Because of these attitudes, Huang and her siblings were bullied so badly in school that their parents sent them to a Chinese church school in Los Angeles' Chinatown.
Interpreting the ups and downs of the career, the Chinese background theme of the film does not allow Chinese to participate, and the Americans play a traditional Chinese couple
Like many people who grew up in Los Angeles, Huang became obsessed with filmmaking, a career prospect her parents weren't keen on. "Good Chinese families don't want their sons to be soldiers, because it's too dangerous, and they don't want their daughters to be actors... In this era, actresses are mostly equivalent to prostitutes and more often to prostitutes," explains Graham Russell, biographer of Huang Liushuang.
Still, the aspiring actress spends her free time visiting the film set and saving money on lunchtime trips to the cinema. At the age of 14, Huang Liushuang was recruited by the agent agent to play an extra in the movie "Red Lantern". It was her first time on screen.
She first appeared in the cast of Subtitles in 1921's Bits of Life.
Huang Liushuang gained more roles as an extra and left home at the age of 17 to audition for more work, supporting herself by working as a model. When she took the lead role in 1922's The Toll of The Sea, she finally made a major breakthrough.
In the film, Huang Liushuang plays a Chinese woman named Lotus who has a fierce love affair with a white American who is rescued by her after being washed ashore on the beach. They had a child, and he promised to take her back to The United States with him, but he abandoned her and brought a white wife back to the United States with their son. In the end, Lotus ended her life by drowning.
As Hollywood's first full-color, full-length narrative feature film, "The Sea Dead" caused a huge sensation in Hollywood. The film is also unique in that it includes an Asian-American actress in the lead role. At the time, it was common to hire white actors to play non-white roles.
In addition, her role is usually perceived as an Asian image by white Americans. At that time, there was a strong racial prejudice in American society, and even the Chinese male figures that appeared in the movies were mostly robbers and drug dealers, while women were either prostitutes or slave girls. The Chinese identity has brought endless pressure and burden to Huang Liushuang. As the first Chinese actress to work hard in Hollywood, Huang Liushuang alone bears unimaginable pressure.
In 1924, at the invitation of Douglas van Punk, he starred in the American film The Baghdad Thief, in which he played a cunning Mongol slave.
"Why are chinese on the screen almost all villains?" She was interviewed in 1933. We're not like that.
Theater photos
In 1928, Huang Liushuang was tired of always playing the same kind of roles in the film, and could only play the vilified Chinese role in the eyes of the typical American to make up for the gap of Asian Actors in Hollywood. She decided to leave Hollywood, set off for Europe, and decided to leave the United States to develop in Europe.
After moving to Europe, Anna May Wong was in her London apartment. After moving to Europe, Anna May Wong was in her London apartment.
In 1928, Huang Liushuang was invited to appear in a number of British films, including the famous silent film "Chinatown Prosperous Dream", in which Huang Liushuang played a maid who experienced various tribulations and eventually became a famous dancer. After less than three years of hard work in Europe, Huang Liushuang has been popular all over Europe, and has also appeared in the French "Vanity Fair" magazine, and its fame in Europe has also eased Hollywood's attitude towards the Chinese actress.
In 1930, Huang Liushuang was invited back to Hollywood and won the applause of countless American audiences again, at which time there was another incident that disrupted her and Hollywood's harmonious situation.
In 1935, the American female writer Pearl Buck began filming "The Land", MGM Pictures rejected Huang Liushuang as the female lead, when the male protagonist had been finalized to be a white person, because the law at that time stipulated that Chinese could not intermarry with whites, Huang Liushuang was not suitable to participate in the film. And the director instead let a German actress play this yellow-skinned role, which made her very disappointed. Despite her talent and extensive resume, Huang Liushuang missed the Chinese character. Instead, the role was given to the white actress Luise Rainer. The studio offered Huang Liushuang a small three role, and Huang Liushuang decisively refused.
The actress of the play, Louise Reiner, won the 10th Academy Award for Best Actress
"You're asking me to take on Chinese ancestry to play the only villain role in a film where all American actors play Chinese characters," Huang Liushuang said in an interview. Despite her achievements as an international film star, it's clear that little has changed since she left the United States.
In 1936, she traveled to China and went to her hometown to learn Chinese culture in the Chinese Chinese and learn Peking Opera with Mei Lanfang. In late 1930, she returned to the United States to play some positive characters for Paramount Pictures' B-movies. In "Shanghai Daughter" and "Lady from Chungking", a truly resourceful heroine and a woman full of patriotic integrity are played respectively
He still cares about the motherland in the distant ocean, and he is still grateful for being banned
Because the characters she played were boldly dressed and exposed, they were labeled as "insulting China" in China, and because of some villain roles, they were once stigmatized as "female traitors" and "puppets that smeared China". In interviews with the domestic media, she honestly admitted that she had played many controversial roles, but she admitted, "Even if I don't play those roles, there will be other white people to play, rather than let them play, it is better for me to play." 」 The media, which had been accusing her, also began to become friendly to her.
During Huang Liushuang's visit to Hong Kong, an angry demonstrator yelled at her as a "puppet to discredit China." When he heard such a rebuke, Huang Liushuang's face turned red and his eyes burst into tears. She was caught between a harsh rebuke of her acting career and an orientalist obscenity.
The injured Huang Liushuang returned to the United States in frustration, although it was not understood by the people at that time, but at least some people gave her understanding. Immediately after the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, she was also anxious in the United States.
During World War II, she faded out of the film and television circle and focused on supporting China's War of Resistance, Huang Liushuang did her best to support the distant motherland - participating in patriotic films, comforting the soldiers of the Allied countries in the United States and Canada, and making many speeches at banquets and charity gatherings in the film industry, calling on the American people to actively support China's War of Resistance, and taking out the jewelry she bought in China for charity sale, and all the proceeds were remitted back to China in 1939 to support the War of Resistance. She became an active advocate for the rights and needs of Asian Americans in the United States and partnered with the United China Relief Organization, an American charity that raised money for humanitarian aid in China during World War II.
From November 18, 1942 to July 4, 1943, Soong Mei-ling visited the United States on behalf of Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China government for more than seven months, covering New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. She spoke all the way, and the American government and opposition were captivated by her pure English, elegant style, and outstanding talent, and she blew up a "Song Meiling whirlwind" in American society.
Song Meiling gave a speech in the United States
On April 4, Song Meiling delivered a speech to more than 50,000 American audiences in Hollywood Open Air Plaza in Los Angeles, focusing on the historical experience and tragic scenes of China's War of Resistance Against Japan. Song Meiling, speaking English with a Southern Accent, introduced the heroic resistance of the Chinese people to the U.S. government and people. Many stars were invited to participate, and at that time, there was only one Chinese actress in Hollywood, Huang Liushuang, but Song Meiling specifically said that she would never see Huang Liushuang, only Huang Liushuang. The reason for not seeing her is that her role as a play insults to the image of Chinese; and that she is an actress from the background of a laundry woman, representing an old Chinese of only laundromats, restaurateurs, gangsters and coolies.
In addition to the outside world's doubts and discrimination against Huang Liushuang, the family does not understand Huang Liushuang, because of her father's traditional education, the family is ashamed of her, even if she bears the high tuition fees of the family's seven brothers and sisters. Huang Liushuang still lived with his family after becoming famous. The eight siblings in the family were all highly educated except her.
After the war, she resumed her acting career. In 1951, she began working on the American television series The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong.
The road of emotional ups and downs, but because of the law at that time, Chinese people prohibited intermarriage with whites and ended in vain
Huang Liushuang's first love is a filmmaker Mickey, who is three or forty years older than her. Nyland. The relationship between the two quickly developed to the point of talking about marriage and planning to go to Mexico to complete the marriage. But due to California law at the time, Chinese women could not intermarry with whites, and the two eventually broke up. In addition, Huang Liushuang also had a relationship with BBC reporter Eric Maschwitz, who wrote a love song for her, "These Foolish Things"
When she planned to perform "Flower Drum Song," she died in 1961 at the age of 56.