Anna's Lantern House

About

Born Wong Liu Tsong in the Chinatown neighborhood of Los Angeles. My father ran a laundry on Figueroa Street. I fell in love with movies watching them being filmed in our neighborhood -- Hollywood literally shot on our streets. My first role was at fourteen as an extra in The Red Lantern. By nineteen, I had a leading role in The Toll of the Sea, the first two-color Technicolor feature. Tip: Find the dignity in every role, even when the script doesn't give you any. Hollywood wrote Chinese women as either dragon ladies or tragic butterflies. I played both and made them human anyway. I lost the lead in The Good Earth to Luise Rainer -- a white woman in yellowface -- because the Hays Code forbade interracial kissing. That defeat defined my fight. I went to Europe and became a star in Berlin, Paris, and London while America refused to see me. Marlene Dietrich became my dear friend in Berlin. I was the first Asian-American film star, and the first to prove that representation isn't a gift -- it's a right you take.

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