#头条创作挑战赛 #
To celebrate the contributions of heroic women and the diverse cultural heritage of the United States, the U.S. Mint annually selects five women to participate in the Distinguished American Women Minting Program. Last month's list was announced, with Ms. Huang becoming the first Asian-American to appear on the U.S. dollar, and a 25-cent coin featuring her portrait was released in the U.S. on Oct. 24.
Huang Liushuang's name has appeared in Liu Yuling's thank-you words. As the second Asian movie star to make a name on the Avenue of Stars, Liu Yuling thanked Huang Liushuang, the first Asian actress to stay on the Avenue of Stars, for opening up territory for her and other actors.
(Liu Yuling on the left, Huang Liushuang on the right)
For a long time, many people's understanding of Huang Liu Shuang may be limited to this. Whether in search engines or various articles, her label is inseparable from this string of keywords: the first Chinese movie star in Hollywood. This is her shiniest title and the most recognizable side of her.
But when I read Huang Liushuang's information, I also felt the limitations of her era and the pressure of her family. Her struggle and climbing in it have allowed her to cross time and space and have a more vivid and three-dimensional image.
Family of origin
Huang Liu Shuang is a third-generation Chinese born in California, whose grandparents immigrated to California during the first "gold rush" in 1855. When Huang was born, mainstream American society was extremely prejudiced against the Chinese, and this environment also doomed her to fight the restrictions of racial discrimination for the rest of her life.
(Yellow Willow Cream)
Huang Liushuang's father, Huang Shanxing, lost his mother at a young age, and when he was 10 years old, his father died to save a woman who fell into a well. Huang Shanxing, who grew up as an orphan, felt the provocation and hostility of white people against Chinese immigrants, and although he was born in the United States, he identified himself more as a "Chinese" than an "American".
Huang Shanxing had saved enough wife at the age of 19, and returned to his hometown in Taishan at the age of 26 to marry Li, who was 8 years younger than him. After Lee gave birth to his son, Huang Doonan, Huang returned to the United States.
After returning to the United States, Huang contacted Lee to ask her to come to Los Angeles with her son Huang Doonan. Li was unwilling, she hoped that her son could stay in the old family village to maintain this incense, and offered to let Huang marry another wife in the United States, so Huang announced in the United States that Li had died.
Li's choice was common in the local area at the time, and many wives in Taishan had such an adrift husband, and she lived to the age of 78 by relying on the property left by her husband and the money she later sent. His son, Huang Doonan, studied until the age of 30 at the request and sponsorship of his father, and became a school teacher after graduating from Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.
Later, Huang Shanxing also asked Huang Liushuang to take out part of his income to subsidize his half-brother, but Huang Liushuang did not agree. Huang Shanxing attaches great importance to the studies of his other children, and almost all of his children go to college graduation, except Huang Liushuang.
(Yellow Willow Cream)
Huang Shanxing is slightly better off than most Chinese American men and can afford to marry another wife, and the year he returned to the United States from Taishan, he was introduced to 14-year-old Li Gongtao, Huang Liushuang's mother, through a Chinese matchmaker.
Li Gongtao was born in San Francisco and is the only child of Li Ling, the owner of a welfare cigar factory, and his wife. Although it was a merchant family, the cigar factory did not run smoothly in the face of competitive pressure from white companies and a climactic Chinese exclusion movement. Cash flow is already unstable, and they are often boycotted and harassed by society, and their family's attitude towards white people is the same as Huang Shanxing's.
Li Gongtao speaks English, but unfortunately, like her Chinese contemporaries in the United States, she is afraid to enter the social circle of European-Americans. In Li Ling's eyes, even if he and his son-in-law are the same age, it is nothing, because the combination of old husband and young wife in Chinese is very normal.
So in 1901, Huang Shanxing, who had just returned to the United States from his hometown, and 14-year-old Li Gongtao married in San Francisco.
At the time, they were still living in Wong's laundry shop in Chinatown. At that time, Chinatown was small, dilapidated, and crowded, and the Chinese living here retained their traditional way of life, and they gained a sense of security by buying houses and doing business.
After the birth of Li Gongtao's eldest daughter, Huang Lulu (Huang Liuying), the patriarchal Huang Shanxing was very unhappy, and he did not return home for several days.
Soon after, he moved his family with his wife and daughter to 351 Flower Street, just outside Los Angeles' Chinatown, and opened a Shan Kee laundry, hoping to seek greater development in this racially mixed neighborhood.
In 1905, the Huang family welcomed their second daughter, Huang Liushuang, and soon after her birth, the mother and daughter contracted measles, which added another worry to Huang Shanxing, who had failed to seek a son.
(Huang Lulu on the left, the baby in Li Gongtao's arms is Huang Liu Shuang)
When Huang was two years old, the family moved back to Chinatown, and a few years later moved to 241 North Fergueroa Avenue, a neighborhood on the edge of Chinatown, where they lived for 24 years.
Although Figueroa North Avenue is on the edge of Chinatown, the residents are predominantly Mexicans and Eastern Europeans, and the Huang family is the only Chinese family here. At this time, the existence of the Li family has been made public in the Huang family, and Huang Liushuang, who grew up in a traditional Chinese family, sees the frequent letters and various requests sent by his father's wife Li Shi in Taishan, and feels the family's absolute loyalty to traditional China, but at the same time, she is in Los Angeles and is exposed to multiculturalism, and she lives in a fragmented environment.
A fragmented reality
The Huang family's business is to open a laundry room, which in the United States is mostly done by Chinese. The income is good, but it is not easy to do. On the one hand, laundrymen were disrespected at the time and had a low social status. On the other hand, this work is very hard, Zhang Chunru once said, the laundry worker must not be idle for a moment, to wash clothes but also to iron clothes (to bleach, remove collars, sleeves, chest lining), with an eight-pound iron running around on slippery ground, an average of 20 hours a day, to be patient, careful, but also technical, very physically consuming, most laundry workers have varicose veins.
In addition to hiring workers, Huang also had his children work in laundries (he later gave birth to eight children in the United States), and his laundry workers accounted for one-third of Los America, which gave him a strong position in the local Chinese community and also contributed to his strong paternalistic style.
The financial benefits brought by the laundry not only allowed Huang Shanxing and his wife and their two daughters to live well in Los Angeles, but also allowed him to take good care of Li and Huang Dounan who were far away in their hometown An Village.
Huang Shanxing, who no longer had to worry about his livelihood, wanted to have another son very much, and in order to make him happy, Li Gongtao dressed his youngest daughter Huang Liushuang as a little boy until he gave birth to his eldest son Huang Jingcai two years later.
(Yellow Willow Cream)
In 1913, Li Gongtao's father Li Ling returned to Yunnan with his family to settle down, and Li Gongtao broke off contact with his parents. As the second daughter in the family, Huang Liushuang and her sister have been taking care of the six younger siblings born to their parents one after another, while working hard in the family's laundry.
Although she worked hard and still had scars on her hands from ironing clothes, Huang Liu Shuang did become more social because of her laundry work. She often socializes with white people when delivering clothes, and is also responsible for checkouts, and she has more contact with white people and is more sensitive to finances than Chinese girls at school.
But Huang Liu Shuang still has some inferiority.
Once she became interested in an upright piano while playing at a neighbor's house in England, she climbed on a bench to touch the keys, but fell awkwardly with an unstable center of gravity. The incident had a great impact on Huang Liushuang, who never learned any musical instrument in her life, and when she recalled this moment decades later, she still felt "very humiliated, unable to lift her head, never forgetting".
The fall was a blow to her, and it made her truly realize that the root cause of her shame was a "difference" — that she was a child who grew up in a Chinese, not a white family.
In order to integrate into society, she curled her hair and made her appearance more beautiful. But after arriving at school, Huang Liushuang "tried to hide what made her more noticeable", and she was considered by her classmates to be the "most Chinese" girl in the school, and she was selected as the "representative of China" for this.
It also brought her unbearable school violence.
She was often bullied by Western children at school, pulling her hair, pushing her on the road, and teasing her and her sister in a circle on the playground. Huang Liushuang went back to cry to his father, and his father's attitude was: society is sinister, early detection is good.
(Yellow Willow Cream)
Seeking help from his father was fruitless, and school violence against Huang Liu Shuang intensified. A boy sitting behind Ms. Huang stabbed a pin in her to see if Chinese children were in pain. In order not to be pricked by needles, Huang Liu Shuang wore a coat the next day, and the boy took a longer pin. Huang Liu Shuang then continued to increase the number of coats, from one to six, and the teacher insisted that she take off all of them. It is said that Huang Liu Shuang almost died of pneumonia due to repeated wearing and undressing and getting cold.
Only then did Huang Shanxing transfer his daughter to an all-Chinese church school, where Huang Liu Shuang lived a very comfortable and happy student life. She changed schools several times in middle school, and also came into contact with different classes of American society, and her rich experience and insights made Huang Liushuang more mature emotionally and mentally than her peers, which also laid the groundwork for her future shadow.
Huang Liu Shuang became involved with art when he was 9 years old. She took a large tip she received while delivering clothes to buy movie tickets, was immediately attracted to the movie, and then often skipped class to go to the movie.
Coinciding with the shift of the focus of the film industry to Los Angeles, many film companies filmed in Chinatown, and Huang Liu Shuang often lingered on the set, fantasizing that he would one day become a movie star. It is true that some actors noticed her on the set and gave her the nickname C.C.C., which means curious Chinese doll.
At the age of 10, she was invited to be a leather model because of her good looks, and at the age of 12, she used her spare time to work part-time as a model in a department store, and her love for movies became stronger and stronger, and she would usually stay in the house by herself and repeatedly re-enact clips from classic movies.
(Yellow Willow Cream)
In 1919, 14-year-old Huang Liushuang waited for her first opportunity.
The American film market shot a movie "Red Lantern" that reflects interracial love, and the movie tells about what happened in Beijing, so it needs a lot of Chinese actors. Huang Liu Shuang acted as a group actor in this film through the introduction of Pastor James Wang, and she did not feel nervous when she first came into contact with the big screen, but had a feeling that her dream came true. She is even more convinced that she was born for film, "the camera is my own".
There is no doubt that Huang Liushuang is obsessed with movies, and her appearance conditions, acting skills, and luck are good enough, but her parents are very opposed to her being an actress.
(Yellow Willow Cream)
For Huang Shanxing, when he became an adult, he was exposed to a society in which whites and blacks could not intermarry, and Chinese people were completely excluded. For him, mere contact with white people was dangerous.
On the other hand, Huang Shanxing felt that there were few Chinese-themed films at that time, and Huang Liushuang was unlikely to get any role.
Indeed, most of the Chinese at that time were villains and harlequins in the play. Chinese women are basically negative tragic characters such as dancers and prostitutes.
(Yellow Willow Cream)
At that time, Hollywood was considered to be the base camp of yellow gambling and drugs, as a new type of profession, whether it was a movie star who had become famous or an ignorant teenager who chased dreams from all directions, in the eyes of the public, they were dangerous elements who did not do their jobs and had no future. What's more, Huang Shanxing has always held the traditional concept of "good men do not join the army, good women do not engage in art", and high-tech products such as "cameras" will take away people's souls in their eyes. For them, it is the most important thing to quickly marry off this gradually rebellious daughter.
Huang Liushuang struggles with her love of movies and identification with her identity, a girl born into a traditional Chinese family, trying to install her newly awakened self in a state-of-the-art industry, this kind of suffocation that no one can say and no one can understand makes her sensitive and kind into anxiety.
Ten years of film road
After "Red Lantern", Huang Liushuang, who loves movies, ignored his parents' opposition and ran through many movies.
Two years later, she received a slightly delicate role in the movie "Xiaoding". The film was a huge success in Europe and the United States, Huang Liushuang's acting talent was praised by the audience, and when she returned home with a check, her career was finally recognized by her family.
Another year later, 16-year-old Huang Liu Shuang starred in Hayakawa Seshu's "Eldest Son". The film is popular in Europe, her role is small, but the acting skills impress the audience. This movie made Huang Liushuang determined to give himself ten years to fulfill his movie dream, and see how far he could go while he was young and could afford to lose.
In this decade, Huang Liu Shuang has spelled out many historic achievements.
In 1922, she played the leading role for the first time in the movie "Sea Death", and in this adaptation of "Madame Butterfly", she became a hit with her extremely talented and superb acting skills, becoming a movie star who could ask for close-ups, earning up to $150 a week, and successfully entered the bright Hollywood palace.
(Huang Liu Shuang in the movie "Sea Death")
After the social circle opened, Huang Liu Shuang and the director he worked with, Marshall Nilan, who had a bad reputation, got involved together.
Each movie in Niland requires a sky-high labor fee of $125,000, spends days drinking and stepping on many boats after getting the money, knowing that California law prohibits whites and Chinese from marrying, and falls in love with Huang Liushuang, who is only half his age. The relationship between the two ended with Nilan's abandonment, but Huang Liushuang has always maintained a friendly relationship with him, and even many years later, when the man was killed, she came to the rescue, and the lovers he found since then are very similar to him.
Although her career achievements have made her parents no longer openly oppose Huang Liushuang's shadow, it has not completely changed her status in the family. His half-brother Huang Doonan, who studied at Waseda University, saw Huang Liushuang's film and immediately wrote to the United States, asking them to "take Huang Liushuang out of the film circle."
Huang Shanxing's heart is actually not satisfied with his daughter's living state, and he always insists on arranging a family affair for Huang Liushuang, so that she can rest assured that she can be at home with her husband and children, away from the right and wrong of Hollywood. Huang Liushuang knew that the marriage arranged by his father must be a Chinese man in Chinatown, so after marriage, he must follow the tradition, and it is impossible to come out to "show up" to make movies.
(1924, Huang Liushuang's identity certificate when he was 19 years old)
It was already difficult to be in the dual dilemma of legal prohibition and family bondage, but Huang Liu Shuang still had a very contradictory set of criteria for choosing a mate in his heart. She not only hopes that the other party will be as responsible as her father Huang Shanxing, but also fears that the other party will be as macho as him. Fortunately, many elite women in American society at that time began to choose to be single, and Huang Liushuang had no way to find love, and simply refused all marriage plans.
A large part of the reason why Huang Liu Shuang can make choices according to her own wishes is her financial ability.
However, at that time, although she had money and bought a house, she still lived with her parents only as an investment channel, which is a very Chinese lifestyle. Gossip magazines seized on this and wrote that she was "older" unmarried, emotionally Western, but Chinese in life, criticizing her for being ambivalent. The gossip spread around the world, and the public commented on her unusual private life, which had a great negative impact on her and hindered the development of her career to a certain extent.
(Yellow Willow Frost in Chicago, 1925)
As Hollywood's premier Chinese movie star, Huang Liushuang has taken hard photos, appeared in magazines, and received higher salaries than ordinary people. But these are only compared to Chinese in the United States, if compared with real Hollywood white movie stars, Huang Liu Shuang is still in the tail end whether it is income or assigned roles.
Her Chinese identity allows her to play the same Chinese roles as a prostitute and an opium dealer. And you can't film a kiss scene, if there is an emotional scene ending you have to die. Although she maximized her acting skills within an extremely limited scope, she is still just an unfavored oriental actress and has no chance to appear in big productions. Although there are close-ups, many photographers will still habitually block her face during shooting, weakening her sense of presence, and her Chinese image is destined to make her impossible to become the protagonist in mainstream movies.
(Stills from the 1928 film by Huang Liu Shuang)
Tied up in Hollywood and feeling that there is no freedom, Huang Liu Shuang decided to leave Europe.
In 1928, Huang Liushuang took his sister Huang Lulu to Germany first, then France and England. She has had a happy few years in Europe, because there is room for people of color and no gossip reporters. European filmmakers loved her, praising her for her talent, the independent mind of a few artists, and unlike many movie stars.
(Yellow Willow Frost (right) and Yellow Lulu in Berlin in 1928)
Huang Liu Shuang is indeed smart. She used her fame in the United States to make films in Europe, which were not as publicized as Hollywood movies but could earn fame.
The relaxed atmosphere in Europe gave her more time to learn acting, and she also learned German and French. Huang Liu Shuang called Europe her second home, where she made many successful films, gained more fans and friends, learned the British high society accent that can deter Hollywood nouveau riche, and became a true international star.
(1928 Yellow Willow Frost in Europe)
When he returned to the United States, Huang Liu Shuang, who had been away for three years, got a long-term contract with Paramount and began to perform on Broadway, while traveling back and forth to Europe and the United States to shoot films.
Compared with many stars who are lost in the lights and wine, the flash makes Huang Liu Shuang rational and warm. She knows that fame is short and fragile, that everything is passing and that "the audience is a ruthless judge", but looking at the boys and girls who work in restaurants and try to dream of stardom, even if she understands that they have a bumpy future, she encourages them to become famous one day.
(Huang Liu Shuang, who returned to the United States in 1931)
The liberal atmosphere in Europe has made Huang Liu Shuang more confident and calm when she returns to the United States, she no longer wants to be manipulated, and her words and actions are more self-sufficient.
When Japan invaded Northeast China in 1931, Huang Liushuang, who had many fans in Japan, published an article entitled "Northeast China" despite his opposition, denouncing Japan's atrocities and accusing it of violating the Treaty of the League of Nations:
The world has never needed a spiritual resurgence as it does today to relieve the fatigue of the rhythms that crush nerves and the big machines that make people rest. As such, we are witnessing the greatest revival in human history, which, in the philosophy of life, will eventually give humanity new care and well-being. Just as the delicate lotus flower always blooms on the mud, despite the ravages of Japan's iron hoof, Chinese culture, with its perfect moral purity and high spirit, will surely bloom on blood and violence.
In 1936, Huang wanted to participate in a film adaptation of Pearl Buck's novel "The Earth", but MGM gave the yellow-skinned character to Louise Rena. Huang Liushuang simply stopped working to travel to China in a fit of anger, and by the way visited Huang Shanxing, who chose to return to his hometown to retire after Li Gongtao's death in a car accident.
A home from afar
For Huang, returning to China was her "lifelong dream," especially after her father and siblings settled in China. Before that, Huang Liushuang felt that "China is a strange country, but in a sense it is home"; After that, reuniting with her family became an urgent reason for her to return to China.
Huang Liushuang has always been interested in Chinese culture. As early as the 30s of the 20th century, when Mei Lanfang visited Europe and the United States, Huang Liushuang had several encounters with him, and the two had a good conversation, and Huang also announced that he had the opportunity to go to Peiping and Mei to listen to plays and form a global tour of the troupe.
(Mei Lanfang (right) and Huang Liu Shuang (center) in London, 1935)
Before returning to China, Huang Liushuang specially read Lin Yutang's masterpiece "My Country and My People" to increase his understanding of China. Lin Yutang's discussion of the golden mean in the book is a true portrayal of her mentality of working hard in Hollywood for many years, and his interpretation of Chinese character also makes Huang Liushuang open to the difficulties of many years, which resonates strongly with her.
(Huang Liushuang took a photo wearing a cheongsam with Chinese characteristics in 1934)
On February 9, 1936, Huang Liushuang arrived in Shanghai on the President Hoover. Huang Liushuang's sister Huang Lulu, Ambassador Gu Weijun and his wife, and Mei Lanfang all greeted at the scene.
Huang Liushuang, who returned to his hometown, caused quite a stir. As a controversial public figure, she was popular with high society, but also raised questions from the media and the public.
Old friend Ambassador Gu Weijun and his wife held a welcome dinner for her, and took her to the banquet of the Norwegian Consul General in Shanghai; Peking Opera master Mei Lanfang hosted a dinner to entertain her; Nanjing's National Film Commission also invited her to visit; There was also the famous "Good Friend" pictorial at that time to ask her for an exclusive interview.
In current words, she has connections, resources, traffic, and coffee positions, and was the top superstar in the domestic limelight at that time.
(The cover of "Good Friends" is Huang Liu Shuang)
In addition to being courteous, some media members of the public are not friendly to her. They believe that Huang Liushuang, who plays a negative role in Hollywood, has tarnished the image of the Chinese, and the media called her an "insulting Chinese clown" and asked her to leave China.
At that time, Huang Liushuang wanted to go back to Laojiang'an Village to have a look, but when the local unemployment tide occurred, the villagers jointly sent a telegram asking Huang Liushuang not to return to the village, otherwise they would drive the family away. Huang Liushuang eventually had to secretly go to her sister Huang Lulu's house for two days, but was still discovered by the villagers, who angrily came to the door to insult her, and her father also asked her to leave.
(Group photo of Huang Liushuang's family in China)
After that, Huang Liu Shuang went to Suzhou and Hangzhou, and also went to Hong Kong and the Philippines on the way. Thanks to her excellent presentation and social skills, Huang Liushuang received public overtures from Mei Lanfang and Hu Die.
In the subsequent dealings with the media, even if the other party deliberately provoked, Huang Liushuang patiently did her part, gradually gained the goodwill of the media, the public image was much better than before, and the reporter who had been very aggressive towards her was also convinced and took the initiative to ask her for an autograph.
A one-year trip to China has deepened Huang's identity with herself, and she understands and has more confidence in China. When she left China, she resolved to continue to support China by "supporting China's increasingly severe anti-Japanese struggle, alleviating its poverty and improving the image of the motherland."
After returning to the United States, Huang Liushuang's trip to China also aroused the public's curiosity. She seized the opportunity to be interviewed by the Los American Herald to share her experience in China, saying that she had "spent the most incredible year, visiting my country for the first time" and praising "the immeasurable potential of Chinese cinema." At the same time, it began to lobby filmmakers to make films that were favorable to China in terms of themes and characters.
After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, Huang Shanxing returned to the United States with his other sons and daughters, but only his son Huang Doonan, who was born to his first wife, Li, did not want to leave. At this time, Huang Liu Shuang "expressed strong patriotic feelings and hated the Japanese invaders" and even chose to move because his residence in the United States was opposite a Japanese garden.
(Yellow Willow Frost in 1937)
During this time, Huang Liushuang received many anonymous threats, some to kill her father, some to pour sulfuric acid on her, and so on. The media interpreted her as a minority group that she was too high-profile in mainstream American society, and too obvious in anti-Japanese love, which caused dissatisfaction among some people.
Huang Liu Shuang, who was on the cusp of the storm, ushered in the development of his career at this time. At the Westchester Theatre, where New York's elite gathered, she participated in the play Turandot for the first time as the leading role, and her acting skills were greatly recognized, becoming a "respected guest at social parties" in high society.
Paramount took advantage of the situation to open a new film "Children of Shanghai" for her, and made a positive description of China according to her requirements, which made Huang Liushuang so happy to make a movie for the first time:
I liked the characters in this movie more than any of the roles I've played before... The film is better for Chinese — we have sympathetic characters.
(Huang Liushuang in "Children of Shanghai")
Unfortunately, at that time, the heroine of "Mulan in the Army", Hong Kong actor Chen Yunchang, was being warmly sought after in Shanghai, and she said during the promotion that she was "not the same person as Huang Liushuang and would not play any role in racist films that offended China", which made Huang Liushuang, who was far away in Hollywood, into controversy.
Huang Liushuang's "Children of Shanghai" achieved good results, and Pearl Buck, the original author of the movie "Earth" that she had missed, coincidentally cooperated with her in the radio version of "Patriot", which can be regarded as making up for the regrets of that year. The resources are much better than before, but the Chinese identity is difficult for Huang Liushuang to give full play to her talents, and she gradually faded out of the film industry after 1938.
(Yellow Willow Frost in 1938)
Huang Liu Shuang is good at financial management, relying on early accumulation, and the economic conditions are good at this time. She bought property on San Vicente Avenue, one of the best neighborhoods in Los Angeles, and opened a small pond in front of her new home, following the tradition of Taishan. Here, she entertained Mr. and Mrs. Lin Yutang and left her most famous photo of her hair bundle - unmarried Huang Liu Shuang tied up a married woman's bun, which is believed to have "married herself to China".
She has also been supporting China, as she said at the end of her trip to China. During the Anti-Japanese War, Huang Liushuang raised money for China in the United States, donated urgently needed medicines, auctioned off his collection of dresses and photos taken in China in Paris, New York and other places for many years, and deposited the proceeds into the Bank of China Fund to help Chinese war refugees.
(Recording China's Yellow Willow Frost with Video)
In April 1939, Huang signed up to tour Australia with the aim of publicly lobbying and organizing fundraising activities to aid China.
In the performance, she used a combination of popular repertoire and Chinese drama to expose the atrocities of Japan's invasion of China in her performance. The tour director has different political views with Huang Liu Shuang, and has publicly criticized her for being outdated and losing her beauty many times. Huang Liu Shuang was neither humble nor arrogant, and continued to condemn the Japanese invaders in the face of his insults, and after each performance, he thanked the director and staff and bowed down from the stage.
(1940 Huang Liu Shuang and younger brother)
After that, Huang Liushuang also starred in mostly works that objectively described China. In 1942, the Broadway drama "Chongqing Martyrs", about the Chinese resistance of the Axis powers, invited Huang Liushuang to star. Huang Liushuang felt that the opportunity was very good, gladly went, and after the performance, he began to work in the Buddhist department, rarely socializing, and enjoying life.
(Yellow Willow Frost in 1946)
In 1952, the movie "Collision" found Huang Liushuang to play a key role, Huang Liushuang liked this role very much, and interpreted it very convincingly. This role brought another small climax to her career, and she and Dumont Network took advantage of the situation to collaborate on the series "Ms. Liu Shuang's Gallery".
After the recording of the show, Huang Liushuang began menopause, because she was unwell and in a bad mood, she often paralyzed herself with alcohol. However, within a year or so, her health suddenly deteriorated, and she developed intra-abdominal bleeding, stroke, and portal cirrhosis. Since then, she has carefully conditioned her body, and her health has come and gone.
In 1956, writer Maugham's "Love Letters" was to be adapted into a movie, in which the role of "mistress" was given to Huang Liu Shuang. As a big fan of Maugham, this movie has fulfilled Huang Liushuang's dream for many years. Since then, her physical and psychological condition has improved a lot, and her life has been rich and fulfilling.
On the afternoon of February 3, 1961, Huang Liushuang suffered a heart attack while taking a nap at home, and the doctor was unable to return to heaven when he arrived. She left quietly at the age of 56.
Compared with many actors of the same era, Huang Liushuang was economically sound in his later years, accompanied by his brothers and sisters, and was very lucky to be able to make some movies piecemeal. Although as a Chinese actor, she has not escaped Hollywood's restrictions on her in her life, but as the first Asian film star in Hollywood and even the world, it is she who bravely and stoically occupies this position for Chinese stars. If it weren't for her unprecedented name on the Avenue of Stars, whether it was Chen Chong or Liu Yuling, they might have to struggle for a long time.
(On the left, Huang Liushuang left his name on the Avenue of Stars, on the right is Liu Yuling)
Huang Liushuang has never been married and has no children, and she has repeatedly told reporters that she wants to marry a Chinese scholar, because "the Chinese nation has always respected learned people", and the most suitable person for herself is a learned and visionary Chinese. Unfortunately, the Chinese men who came to study in the United States were very prejudiced against her, coupled with the problem of class and language differences, she did not find her ideal other half in the end.
Huang Liushuang relies on an old Chinese saying to drive away the anxiety in his heart - the mind is as calm as water. This woman, who was born in the United States but considers herself "a pure Chinese", is regarded as an outlier at home, in the workplace, and in her hometown. She is in such a forced environment, but she can still have the courage to explore herself and live so resolutely and freely. After so many years of being forgotten and misunderstood, thanks to the 25-cent coin, it's good that she was remembered again.
I am Huang Willow Frost,
From old Hong Kong,
Now the stars shine in Hollywood,
My heart is very happy.
Sleepwalking in Baghdad,
I look oriental;
Friendly to people,
I send them laughter;
Bless China,
There's nothing I can do,
Make yourself more beautiful,
They invited me to take a boat to the Pacific;
Chinese silk and rice,
You will definitely like,
Please imagine me as beautiful as they are.
I am Huang Willow Frost,
From old Hong Kong,
I will always love her.
(Song by Huang Liu Shuang)