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Today is Anna May Wong's 114th birthday. My book OCULUS, which celebrates her, comes out in 12 days. I want to take a moment to celebrate this queen and her legacy...She was born on January 3rd, 1905, in Los Angeles. A true Capricorn.
She starred in the Toll of the Sea at the age of 17, a retelling of the Madame Butterfly story. It was one of the first Technicolor feature films in Hollywood. 
Then she went on to take a role in Douglas Fairbanks' Thief of Baghdad. Though the role was small (she played a Mongol slave), she attracted a lot of attention.
She was a Chinese flapper in the 1920s and went on to become a fashion icon and star. In the late 1920s she went to Europe -- first Berlin, then Paris, then London -- to escape the stereotype-ridden Hollywood of America, but she soon learned that stereotypes were inescapable.
In the early 1930s she starred alongside Marlene Dietrich in Shanghai Express. She also starred in Piccadilly, a British film. In many of these films she played villain-type Dragon Lady characters, or tragic women who get abandoned for white women.
One of the only films where Anna May Wong played a sympathetic protagonist was Daughter of Shanghai, where she starred with another Asian American actor, Philip Anh, and they worked together to solve a detective case. (They were once high school classmates!)
In 1934, Anna May Wong went to China for the first time in her life. Imagine this: a Chinese American actress, born and raised in America, always expected to 'represent' her heritage, going to her father's village, Hong Kong, & Shanghai, to see "China" for herself.
She didn't speak Chinese at all, to the disappointment of Chinese people. Anna May Wong did meet one of the most prominent actresses of China, Hu Die, shown here.
Anna May Wong's claim to fame is perhaps the one role she DIDN'T get: the role of O-lan, heroine of Pearl Buck's the Good Earth, which went to Luis Rainer, who won the Oscar for that role. The protagonists in this film were all white actors in yellowface, the extras were Chinese.
Anna May Wong had a lifelong friendship with Carl Van Vechten, a patron of the Harlem Renaissance. Through him, Anna May Wong met such luminaries such as Zora Neal Hurston, Langston Hughes, and Gertrude Stein. She was also close with actor Paul Robeson, shown here.
During World War II, Anna May Wong made propaganda films that cast China in a sympathetic light, including Bombs Over Burma and Lady from Chungking, and she donated the proceeds from these films to United China Relief.
In 1951, Wong starred in a detective series that was written for her, The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong, where she played an art dealer / detective with her Chinese name. It aired on prime time 9-9:30PM. Here she is in one of her later roles, in Climax! (1958).
Prior to her death in 1961, Anna May Wong took the role of Madame Liang in Flower Drum Song, but backed out due to her health. This 1961 film was the BIGGEST American film with an Asian cast until 1993's Joy Luck Club (which retained its title until 2018's Crazy Rich Asians.)
There you have it! Anna May Wong, the legend, the star, born 114 years ago today. Happy birthday! In 12 days, OCULUS will be released, which will feature a suite of poems on this icon 💐
