Anna May Wong, Chinese-American Star Quiz

Answer: Toll of the Sea

The 1922 "Toll of the Sea" used a plot heavily lifted from the opera "Madama Butterfly". An American on business in Hong Kong marries Lotus Flower (Wong) and then goes home without her. She was only 17 years old when the film was released. It was shot in 2-color Technicolor and doesn't look too bad.

Answer: A Mongol slave

Early in the movie, Douglas Fairbanks pokes a scantily clad Mongol slave played by Wong with a knife in her back to keep her quiet. He then walks off, setting the knife so she thinks he's still holding it on her. She spends the rest of the movie trying to get revenge on him, for which I don't blame her much.

Answer: Went to Europe to make movies there

Race-based limitations hampered Wong's career in Hollywood, so she went to Europe, where she could appear in a somewhat broader range of films. She went to Berlin first, then made five movies in England.

Answer: It showed her dancing topless.

The poster showed a drawing of Wong dancing topless, though she didn't do that in the movie (or any of her movies, as far as I know). "Piccadilly" included one of Charles Laughton's earliest appearances and what may have been the first portrayal in a feature film of a black man dancing with a white woman.

Answer: The Good Earth

Wong auditioned for the part of O-Lan, a Chinese farmer, in the 1937 movie "The Good Earth", but the part went to Luise Rainer, a German actress. Rainer used makeup to look Chinese and won an Oscar for Best Actress. The movie was based on the novel of the same title by Pearl S. Buck.

It would have been a first-class opportunity for Wong to escape her stereotyped roles as a demure victim or a "dragon lady". She was offered a part which she referred to as "the only unsympathetic role in the picture" but indignantly declined.

Answer: Peter Pan

Wong played Princess Tiger Lily in the 1924 "Peter Pan". Her tribe is described as "Indians", although they live in Neverland and not in the Americas.

Answer: A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

The Hollywood Walk of Fame was launched in 1960, and Wong was one of the people recognized with a star in that year. There is also a statue of her at the Hollywood and La Brea Gateway, at the west end of the Walk, which was installed in 1993.

Answer: Fu Manchu

Fu Manchu was the central villain in a series of novels by Sax Rohmer, which served as the basis for about 20 movies. He was played by white actor Warner Oland. Fafner is a dragon from Norse mythology. Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire. Hundun is a Chinese mythological figure representing chaos.

Answer: Smuggling of immigrants

In the opening scene of "Daughter of Shanghai", a pilot fatally dumps his immigrant cargo from a plane to avoid being caught with the evidence. Lan Ying Lin (Wong), the daughter of a man murdered by the human smuggling gang, infiltrates the gang in the hope of getting justice. The villains are the American smugglers, not the immigrants.

Answer: She died before production began.

Anna May Wong was scheduled to play Madam Liang in the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Flower Drum Song", but she died in 1961 before production began. The movie's cast consisted mostly of Americans of East Asian extraction, as was appropriate to the story but unprecedented in a Hollywood feature film.