Vintage style icons: Anna May Wong

Lena | March 28, 2010 | 0 Comments

AnnaMay In the most severe disappointment of her career, Wong was rejected for the role of Olan in The Good Earth (1936) in one of Hollywood’s most notorious casting disputes. Austrian actress Luise Rainer (who wasn’t Asian) played the role and won the 1937 Best Actress Oscar. Wong spent the next year touring China, visiting her family’s ancestral village and studying Chinese culture

Anna May Wong went into semi-retirement in 1943, supporting the Chinese war effort against Japan. She didn’t appearing again until a minor role in the film noir Impact (1949), some television guest spots, and finally as Lana Turner’s housekeeper in Portrait in Black (1960).

Anna May Wong died in 1961 of a heart attack.

Wong’s image and career have left a lasting legacy. Through her films, public appearances, and prominent magazine features, she helped to “humanize” Asian-Americans to white audiences during a period of overt racism and discrimination.

Asian-Americans, especially the Chinese, had been viewed as perpetually foreign in U.S. society, but Wong’s films and public image established her firmly as an Asian-American citizen at a time when laws specifically discriminated against Asian immigration and citizenship