Customer Reviews

Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend

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In a mysterious convergence of coincidence and good fortune reminiscent of that week in 1975 when then-immerging rocker, Bruce Springsteen, landed on the covers of both TIME and NEWSWEEK, we've witnessed the publication of three monographs on Anna May Wong in a one-year span. Let it be known that, heretofore, there have been no Anna May Wong books, no Anna May Wong "industry" (as there is for, say, Marilyn Monroe or dozens of other dead celebs), and that the unfortunate actress had been lucky to get a capsule bio or passing reference in most mainstream film histories.

Thus, after years of neglect, a full-length biography of Ana May Wong (1905-1961), the first Chinese American star, whose career spanned the silent era, the talkies, stage, radio and television, is cause for celebration.

I should alter that to cause for "qualified celebration," for Graham Russell Gao Hodges' always well-meaning but sometimes flawed ANNA MAY WONG: FROM LAUNDRYMAN'S DAUGHTER TO HOLLYWOOD LEGEND, is not the definitive bio her fans have longed for.

It is good on a whole, even excellent in some respects, but there are technical inconsistencies at hand and dubious interpretations proffered that prevent it from being a totally reliable, much less authoritative statement on its subject.

Furthermore, at the risk of appearing a crank, I'll say that I've encountered few books put out by a major publisher (Paragon Macmillan is an imprint of St Martin's Press) so fraught with repetitions, typos, imprecise language, faulty syntax and poorly constructed writing. At times, the reader feels compelled to cry out, "Is there an editor in the (publishing) house?"

In a chapter devoted to Wong's early career, for instance, Hodges dutifully describes Wong's involvement in several silent films from Cinema's Black & White past, when, suddenly, he starts to describe the colors of her costumes in yet another. What, you may well ask, true-to-life colors in a silent movie? It is not until the sixth paragraph devoted to the film in question that the author reveals that THE TOLL OF THE SEA (1922) just happened to be the first Technicolor feature.

(There are other such lapses, but since they've been noted elsewhere, I shan't repeat them here.)

Though penned by a university professor (Hodges teaches History at Colgate University), the book is accessible and targeted--presumably--for a just-above-middlebrow readership of movie buffs, enlightened culture fans, and curious bibliophiles in search of an offbeat bio. Its availability is obviously welcomed by scholars of Asian American and Film Studies, to say nothing of Wong's loyal "keepers of the flame." While the book cites sources and features a bibliography, filmography and list of Wong's television appearances, it isn't "academic" in tone, nor is it the puff piece or hackwork that some have made it out to be. It isn't as great as it could be, but isn't terrible either.

While I've seemingly dwelled upon the book's weaknesses, there are many things to admire here, and we should be grateful to Hodges for bringing to light many hitherto unknown and obscure facts about Anna May Wong, such as her interview with the Frankfort School philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin (alas, not yet available in English translation), or her long-standing friendship and correspondence with 20th Century (Harlem) Renaissance Man, Carl Van Vechten, or that she was the likely inspiration for songwriter Eric Maschwitz's romantic standard, "These Foolish Things."

The author has done a commendable job of gathering the facts. Hodges has traveled the world in search of printed primary and secondary sources, and his book is an admirable compendium of excerpts from yellowing press clippings and movies magazines from long ago and far away, and a fair sampling of some up-to-date theories and perspectives, too. He did not interview Wong's surviving brother, Richard (it's been said that he doesn't grant interviews with anyone, anyway), but he did travel to China and discovered new information and materials on the Chinese branch of her father's family. Hodges excels at gathering material and archival research, and his book will undoubtedly inspire other writers and scholars in their own research into Wong's life, films and legacy.

I think his treatment of her personal life is as in-depth as can be expected for a subject born a hundred years ago, and who died before a "revival" kicked in. Hodges paints his subject as a woman of wit, talent, intelligence (she spoke several languages), and courage. He writes of her triumphs and disappointments, from her earliest years growing up a movie-obsessed kid on the outskirts of L.A.'s Chinatown, to her achievements on stage and screen, to her twilight years in Tinseltown.

The author reflects a global view of the star who was often "too Chinese" for European American Hollywood, and "too American" for Nationalist China. Hodges, himself married to a Chinese, demonstrates particular insight into Wong's duality, and the peculiar cultural/racial tightrope she traversed. He also writes with authority on the authenticity and appropriateness of the actress' various ethnic hairdos, costumes, gestures and dances in many film roles. Still, I think he goes overboard in always attributing the introduction of these elements to Wong's overt contribution or sly "coding" of ethnographically correct elements and their "political and national associations" into mainstream European and European American films.

Hodges, who has in the past written on African American history, is particularly sensitive to matters of race and civil rights, and is quite effective in conveying the particular hardships that American citizens of Chinese descent had to endure in the wake of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 until its repeal only during Wong's lifetime. He writes compellingly of Wong's ambivalence about her Chinese heritage and its traditions--she was in most ways a thoroughly modern American woman--and how an extended trip to the land of her ancestry was something of a life-changing experience for the star.

The author touches on just about every aspect of Wong's life and work, and various mass-media interpretations of the same. Hodges also explores Wong's legacy, and shows that he is hip to the long-standing "camp" appreciation of Wong, and of artists like Andy Warhol, Martin Wong and Ray Johnson who executed works devoted to the exotic star. He also shows that Wong, who might be accused of perpetuating unflattering perspectives of Asians in her film roles, poses a problematic figure to scholars of Asian American history.

Anna May Wong is a fascinating subject, and Hodges is in so many ways an insightful and sympathetic biographer. Yet, his isn't quite the biography its subject deserves. (See Barry Paris' LOUISE BROOKS, (Knopf, New York, 1989) for an example of a thoroughly riveting, incisive and authoritative account of a film star and one of Wong's contemporaries.) If this book is ever released in paperback, let's hope that it is a "revised" edition; there is plenty of good material here for a judicious editor to craft into a much better book.

Anna May Wong was known as something of a sex symbol in her day, but she was also a very talented actress. From her first starring role in Toll of the Sea she had an ability to touch you from the screen. Unfortunately, she was constantly put in bad vehicles and is virtually unknown today.

While I was glad to find an affordable biography on Wong, I soon found that I got what I paid for. This book gives alot of facts about Wong, so many in such a hurried fashion that one gets bleary eyed reading them. The writing is terribly uneven and vague. Case in point, something happened to incur the wrath of the Chinese people against Wong when she arrived for her only trip to China. However, the author only says she was "uncharacteristically rude to her fans." So...what'd she do that was so bad they threatened her family if they allowed her to stay in China? He doesn't give us the details. I suppose it could be possible that his source was just as vague, but he could at least have let his readers know the facts were not available, especially when he went to such great detail later in the chaper describing the hatred Wong experienced at the hands of her countrymen due to the mysterious event.
Then at the end of the book Hodges describes one of Wong's last appearances on television with the fact that there was a problem with her lower lip "from her near fatal stroke two years before." The TV show in question was taped in 1960. For whatever reason, this is the first time the author mentions the stroke(I went back over the previous pages to see if, in my boredom, I had skipped over it; the last illness mentioned was a two day hospitalization she had sometime in 1955 or '56. I'm sure if this was the "near fatal stroke" she would have been hospitalized for more than two days). Hodges is so busy describing her TV appearances he "forgets" to tell us about the stroke!
Also disappointing is the lack of photos of Wong from later in her life.
The author seems at times to be protecting Wong's reputation by omitting facts and downplaying her drinking problem so that the reader doesn't come away with a bad feeling about the actress. His subject has been dead for more than 40 years and I'm sure that the knowledge that she may have been "rude" from time to time will not deter people who enjoy her work from buying the Picadilly DVD coming out in February, or seeing any of her rare films should they become available. The man is a history professor, for goodness sakes! It is rather juvenile on his part to write a "puff piece" instead of reporting the facts. This leads me to wonder if Hodges was really the author or did one of his students pen the book for extra credit?

This was a good story for anyone who has an interest in Chinese-Americans, The Golden Age of Hollywood, or the psychology of the identity crisis. Although I have only seen one movie that includes Anna May Wong (The Thief of Bagdad), I have found myself caught up in her beauty and sexy, but rather meloncholoy persona. Her story is, in fact, a sad one that includes alcoholism, loneliness and non-acceptence from Americans and Chinese alike. It is also a story that crosses paths with interesting people of her time including Douglas Fairbanks, Marlene Dietrich, Anthony Quinn, Lin Yutang, and Madame Chaing Kai-Shek.

This book has sparked my curiousity and I plan on trying to watch some of the Anna May Wong movies mentioned in this book such as "Chu Chin Chong", "Shanghai Express", "Piccadilly" and "Lady of Chunking".

Anna May Wong seems like a fascinating subject. I have found this book, however, to be seriously frustrating. The quality of the writing is often poor, particularly for someone who teaches in a university. An example: "Admiration was not the emotion used in China to describe the film" (p. 147. What's wrong with this? Well, first, admiration is not an emotion. Secondly, you do not "use an emotion" to "describe" something.) This may seem like nit-picking, but it becomes less so when such poor self-expression is to be found on so very many pages, along with an incredible number of typos. (These are of course not the fault of the author, but they do speak to the process of editing which is not inconsequential.) The author is married to a Chinese woman and he does indeed seem to have a unique insight into Anna May's duality as a result, and he seems to have done a lot of research, but there is much missing here. Anna May's musical performances seem to come out of the blue, for example-- there is no mention of training, background, etc. I also find the analyses of her costumes/hairstyles odd-- how did she have so much control over these elements? (Hodges does describe an early make-up session, so why should we assume that stars did their own hair?) It may well be that in the early days of cinema there were no hair-stylists or costumers... but then, a little more background would help to clarify. To me this book is too intent on analysis and speculation, and at the expense of writing quality. If I'm going to take that leap of faith, I want the author to earn it by thinking and expressing himself clearly. If he can't do those things, why should I trust his analysis?

Inspired by Graham Hodges' introductions to the MoMA film series of Anna May Wong, I come here to look for the book. I think Hodges is a terrific speaker and very intelligent scholar. I am excited about Anna May Wong, whom I just learned about recently, by Hodges' comments and the films I saw during the past few days.

Sadly I have yet to read another biography on Anna May Wong, so I can not recommend one. But this one really should be passed over...or taken with a grain of salt.

Hodges writing style is dry. Its almost as if he took several documents...then told us he did. "Anna went to China in such and such year, she then returned on such and such date". Page after page this gets annoying. There are also several typos and misspellings...an odd thing for a published book.

My biggest complaint is Hodges perpetuated the myth that Anna May Wong was buried in an unmarked grave. Several biographers have repeated as such but in actuality Anna is buried under her chinese name (it took a website Forget the Talkies, to find this out). Seems simple enough to research; especially by someone claiming to be so in touch with Chinese history and symbolisim (he goes on and on about her hairstyles). Not worth the read, try another bio.

This book is a good summer read. It is a good combination of academia and effective storytelling. For younger readers this will help to illuminate some of the constraints people of color were burdened with vs. Hollywood etc. This is a charming and sympathetic portrait of a beautiful and talented artist. More stills of the lovely Anna May would have been most welocme. There were so few women of color who were "allowed" to be glamourous,beautiful and cultured...that Anna May retained her dignity under these conditions is a victory to be celebrated.

Graham Hodges shows great sympathy for the difficult position that Anna May Wong occupied as the international film industry's only Asian-American actress. Asian-American readers should find this account of the difficulties faced by an earlier generatin of talented Asians enlightening and inspiring.

Too "Oriental" for the America of the time but too Westernized to be accepted by the Chinese, Wong was not completely accepted by either society. Fed up with the stereotyped roles as either victim or villain that Hollywood handed her, Wong went first to Europe where she won scores of new admirers, then to China. There, Wong received a mixed reception-though she was treated as a celebrity, the Nationalist government considered her a stooge of Hollywood. The Anna May Wong that emerges from this carefully researched account is plucky, courageous and persistent. Hodges treats his subject with the sensitivity and respect she deserves at the same time that he is not afraid of venturing into the ticklish area of Wong's personal life. Anti-miscegenation laws and societal taboos were obstacles to Wong's having lasting relationships and there were few Chinese men the actress could have happily married in the United States of half a century ago. Wong has long deserved a biography. Hodges is to be congratulated for having written this engaging, perceptive and carefully researched account of her life.

Gao Hodges' research into Anna May Wong seems pretty thorough to me! Though he failed to speak to the surviving brother, Richard, Hodges still is able to paint a fairly full picture of Wong's private life. The various misspellings are a shame ("Delores" Del Rio for example) but aren't egregious. As other reviewers have noted, where Hodges shines is in his ability to "crack the code," to convey to us what Anna May Wong was trying to sneak onto the screen when the pedestrian Hollywood scenarios she has stuck with failed her sense of her art--her gestures, her costumes, her allusions to realms of Chinese history and folklore she made her own, and which we might never have known about if we were not ourselves Chinese American--which I'm not. So good for him! And congratulations to the British Film Institute for its superb restoration of Dupont's "Piccadilly" which was recently shown here in SF to accompany the recent groundswell of interest in Wong's career.

I decided to read "Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend" because I knew very little about Anna May Wong personally or professionally, but had heard good things about her from other fans. Having seen her image more on antique cigarette cards (stunning!) than I have on film, I was hoping to read about the types of films she appeared in, her specific roles and what her overall experience as a minority (more specifically Chinese American) actress in Hollywood entailed. Graham Russell Gao Hodges delivered that and more in his absorbing account of this sophisticated, intelligent and hardworking actress whose career made a worldwide impact but sadly was equally limited by prejudice at home and abroad.