Anna May Wong in Tod Browning's DRIFTING: An Opium Story! & THE TOLL OF THE SEA

She was the first Chinese to become a major international star. And then the studio told her she must never date a white man. A fashion icon, a trail blazer- who was not allowed to date.

All over the world critics, audiences and the box office took to Anna May Wong and adored her. Why? Take a look at these scenes from PICCADILLY (about 5 minutes)

Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States at the time prevented interracial marriages and even prevented interracial actors from kissing on-screen. This prevented Wong from landing leading roles in romantic movies. There was only one Asian male actor at the time, and he was at a different studio.

She was allowed to be one of the first actresses to open Graumann’s Theater, but she was told because of her race she could not leave her handprints and signature in front of the theater.

Here she is in the first 2 color Technicolor film THE TOLL OF THE SEA and she is magnificent in it:

Her acting is so natural in the film, you know what she is feeling and thinking every step of the way.

Tod Browning would go on to do DRACULA and FREAKS but the film he did with Priscilla Dean on the opium trade, DRIFTING is not up to those standards- except when Anna May Wong is on the screen. I like drug movies but Anna elevates the film in every scene she is in:

"After the runaway success of Outside the Law, director Tod Browning reteamed with star Priscilla Dean on Drifting, another hard-boiled crime picture flavored with Orientalism. Set in a remote Chinese village, and staged on an epic scale, Dean stars as Cassie Cook, an opium trafficker caught between an undercover government agent (Matt Moore) and a fellow smuggler (Wallace Beery). Dean may have been the star, but it is Anna May Wong (age eighteen and on the brink of stardom), who steals the show during the film’s fiery climax."

Anna fought the studios to play a real Asian and then in 1934 she wanted the lead in THE GOOD EARTH. A role that went to a white woman dressed as Chinese. There was no way they could have her kiss Paul Muni, also pretending to be Asian.

The studios warned actors to stay away from her, which was ignored by Louise Brooks who embraced Anna for bringing flapper fashions to Hollywood. Marlene Dietrich demanded she be cast in SHANGHAI EXPRESS. It has long been rumored she had an affair with Dietrich but no one really knows. In 1932 lesbians and bisexual women could be arrested and jailed, so if it happened it is understandable why there is no record. The rumor started by the way, just based on the sexual energy of the two women onscreen.

Anna lived long enough to see her star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. She died of a heart attack the next year. She was still working.

Anna May Wong: Frosted Yellow Willows Her Life, Times, & Legend

Behind the paywall: 1920 - Outside the Law - tod browning - priscilla dean & lon chaney sr. with an uncredited Anna May Wong