How does one begin to write about Anna May Wong? She was a laundry man’s daughter who became Hollywood’s first Chinese American actress during the Golden Age and eventually an international star. She is usually written as a tragedy: having had to play stereotypes on screen, being rejected from “The Good Earth” in favor of a white actress in yellowface who would end up winning an Oscar for the performance, and dying after years of alcoholism. These dim parts of her life overshadow her barrier-breaking accomplishments. In biographies and articles with discrepancies, how much is true?
Katie Gee Salisbury, a Brooklyn-based writer, was first introduced to Anna May Wong in a giant photograph at the Chinese American Museum where Salisbury interned. The picture of Wong in a convertible in a parade was striking. Salisbury asked who the woman in the picture was and was shocked she had never heard of her before.
Salisbury felt a deep connection with Anna May Wong, who reminded her of her mother and how she grew up in the Montana suburb of Los Angeles. Wong’s family was also from Toisan in southern China, like Salisbury’s family. Salisbury thought she could learn more about her own history through Anna May Wong, who’s been a beacon in her life ever since. This compelled her to write a biography of Wong, “Not Your China Doll,” to depict the wild and glimmering life of the star.
The most surprising discovery that Salisbury found during her research was that Wong had suffered from alcoholism. “Many people had said [Wong] had been an alcoholic at the end of her life,” Salisbury said. Through correspondence between Wong and her friends, Salisbury found that Wong did have a drinking problem in her later life, likely related to depression.
“She was experiencing a different kind of rejection from Hollywood,” one that “didn’t have to do with her race so much as it did with her age,” Salisbury said.
The other interesting discovery is about a movie that…
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