The psychology of the identity crisis...

books:


	• Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend Graham Russell Gao Hodges Palgrave Macmillan, 2005 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The psychology of the identity crisis...

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".

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HODGES BRILLIANT SHINING LIGHT

Professor Hodges locked me in his basement and made me read Anna May Wong over and over and over and OVER again while wearing a leather motercycle yamaka. He fed me nothing but scraps of fatty bacon. she was INTOXICATING. I directed my MALE GAZE at this modern marvel. This masterpiece. If you have not read it, YOU MUST. Bask in the radiance of this brilliant man.

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Incontournable

Wong really deserves to be known. Some actors and actresses has been forgotten, obscured by the BIG ones. It is great to have some people shed light on them. See her in "Shangai Express" where her presence is extraordinary (even besides Dietrich) and any silent movies buff shouldn't miss "Piccadilly".
I think there was a lot of details in her life to tell and maybe the author was obliged to compress this book a bit too much (the publisher's fault?)...
A good buy. Wong is "incontournable".

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Good Summer Reading

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.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

Anna May Wong was perhaps the best known Chinese American actresses during Hollywood's golden age, a free spirit and embodiment of the flapper era much like Louise Brooks. She starred in over fifty movies between 1919 and 1960, sharing the screen with such luminaries as Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Marlene Dietrich. Born in Los Angeles in 1905, Wong was the second daughter of six children born to a laundryman and his wife. Obsessed with film at a young age, she managed to secure a small part in a 1919 drama about the Boxer Rebellion. Her most famous film roles were in The Thief of Baghdad, Old San Francisco, and Shanghai Express opposite Dietrich. Despite these successes, instances of overt racism plagued Wong's career. When it came time to make a film version of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, she was passed over for the Austrian-born actress, Luise Rainer. In a narrative that recalls both the gritty life in Los Angeles's working-class Chinese neighborhoods and the glamour of Hollywood at its peak, Graham Hodges recounts the life of this elegant, beautiful, and underappreciated screen legend.

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