00:01:18.300And I think different people bring a different sort of lens onto the biography.
00:01:22.580And so I was so excited to have the author of this new biography, which is called Not Your China Doll, The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna Mae Wong.
00:01:31.620The author is Katie G. Salisbury, who is such a huge fan of Anna Mae Wong and has been for such a long time.
00:01:39.280And actually, when I was learning about Anna Mae Wong last year for the first time, that's where I encountered her book and also her Instagram account where she posts pictures of Anna Mae Wong.
00:01:48.860Basically, her Instagram is Anna Mae Wong book.
00:01:51.080so anyway i was just like i need to talk more about anime wong and katie happily agreed to
00:01:57.100come on this podcast and talk about her with me and i'm so excited to just like really dive into
00:02:01.400anime wong's whole deal her whole life how she was such a groundbreaker in so many different ways
00:02:08.120it was such a delight to talk to katie about her and i hope you enjoy and then we're gonna also0.98
00:02:14.120put her on the scandalicious scale like anime wong is officially a vulgar history girly
00:06:43.860Like in those 20 years from you not hearing of her to now she's like on the American quarter.
00:06:47.560Sure. Yeah, no, I mean, it's been really incredible, especially the last couple of
00:06:53.040years to have been working on a book while all of these amazing things are happening. And now
00:06:59.080when I tell people about her, you know, not everyone, you know, of course not everyone
00:07:03.220has still heard of her, but people will be like, oh yeah, she sounds familiar. Or I did know that
00:07:07.860she was on the quarter or yeah, I saw the Barbie. And so there's definitely a much more of a level
00:07:13.240of recognition. So we're getting closer to what I think she deserves. Well, and I think it's so
00:07:19.440interesting. I don't often talk about 20th century people on the show. I'm often looking at longer
00:07:24.660ago, but there's been several people I've talked about on this podcast who have been, they were so
00:07:31.000famous in their day. And then just like, everyone forgot about them. And I'm like, but they were so
00:07:36.600famous. And she was so famous in her time. Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, she had songs written
00:07:42.640about her. I mean, she was so famous in Europe. And then when she went to China as well, the same
00:07:47.760thing. I mean, it's, it's incredible the way human memory works, that it can, it can disappear that
00:07:54.880quickly as soon as the person is gone. And I mean, that, that just tells you that who's telling
00:07:59.660stories, who's, who's telling history really matters. Right. And if we don't take care of
00:08:05.380these stories and of these important people in our communities, they really disappear from public
00:08:10.080memory. And I think that is, I mean, that's the flip side of what she experienced in life. The
00:08:16.420challenges she had as an Asian American actress are the same challenges she has in death, right?
00:08:22.120Because if there's no one there to remind people about her legacy, then we forget her.
00:08:28.940So that's why I'm so excited. There's books about her, like your wonderful book that's just coming
00:08:34.160out. I think this episode is coming out like the same way it's being published. And so where I've
00:08:38.760invited you on the show specifically is just to like let's just dig into it let's talk about her
00:08:43.640story and how amazing and singular she was there's yeah like we'll go through it but it just
00:08:50.480she had the experience of hers like part of it is similar to other people who are actors in the
00:08:57.220silent movie era and then kind of struggling to make it afterwards but then she had the added
00:09:02.660addition of like being an asian american woman and what does that mean so it's so interesting
00:09:07.780it's such a fascinating story and we're just going to kind of walk through it. So first of all,
00:09:13.020can you explain her family and where she was born and what her, what her childhood was?
00:09:19.620So Anna May Wong was born in 1905 in Los Angeles. She was the daughter of, you know,
00:09:27.380her two Chinese parents who were both born in California. So her grandparents, who I don't
00:09:34.100believe she ever met, um, were the people who immigrated from Southern China to the U S likely
00:09:40.480around the gold rush. Um, her father was born in a mining town in Northern California. So he kind
00:09:46.960of grew up during like the wild West days, like when the railroad was being built, when there were
00:09:51.680a lot of miners who were still, you know, trying to, you know, find the dream of making it rich.
00:09:56.820so her family is really part of the history of California and of the West. And, uh, so by the
00:10:04.660time she was born in 1905, Los Angeles, you know, was just starting to kind of virgin as a city.
00:10:10.920It wasn't quite there yet. It was, it was this, you know, dusty outpost. And I think it was very
00:10:16.860felicitous that she was born at that time because, um, you know, she's kind of in like the downtown
00:10:23.340Los Angeles area, like right at the, at the center of the city. And that in 1910 is like when the
00:10:28.300first studios from the East start to come out to Los Angeles and set up shop. So she's a little
00:10:33.940girl, um, you know, helping out at her father's laundry. That's kind of a lot of the, I mean,
00:10:38.940this still really is true for a lot of immigrant businesses. Um, the family, everyone's involved
00:10:44.460in it, right? When you come home from school, you're helping out at the business. And that
00:10:47.300was certainly true for Anna and her sister and her other siblings who came along later.
00:10:51.560so they would help deliver loads of laundry and so while she was out and about doing things like
00:10:57.800that um she started to see people making films in the streets because you know that's there
00:11:02.340weren't um you didn't get licenses to film on location you know and a lot of studios thought
00:11:07.960well you know Chinatown is like free environment free background we don't have to put up a set we
00:11:12.320just show up shoot in the dark alleyways and we get you know that that atmospheric look um so
00:11:19.140So, you know, as the story goes, as she is told her own memoir in the movie magazines, she became known as the curious Chinese child because she was always hanging out around movie sets, asking people what was going on, you know, studying the stars.
00:11:35.060and she has, she tells this great story about the first time she sees, uh, one of these actresses
00:11:42.060doing a scene, you know, on the street and it's May Murray and she's dressed in rags and she looks,
00:11:47.980you know, terrible, all raggedy, not what she thinks the movie star should look. And she's
00:11:51.860like, well, I can't, you know, she didn't understand that she was dressed that way for
00:11:55.440the film, but she, that was her first moment of, of thinking, well, I could do that. You know,
00:12:01.020I could look better than her. I could be on screen. And so from that very early moment,
00:12:07.540you know, she's decided like, I want to do that. And she was in the right place at the right time.
00:12:13.140So by the time she's in, you know, her early teens, which is, you know, that takes us up to
00:12:17.680after 1915. 1915 is an important year because you have Birth of a Nation comes out and
00:12:23.780for cinematic reasons, I mean, obviously it's kind of this racist spectacle.
00:12:31.020that revives the KKK. But within cinema history, it's this really important moment because
00:12:36.480it's the first time you really have some like critical recognition that film could be an art,
00:12:43.280right? It's not just a fad. It's not, you know, I try to compare it sometimes because people don't,
00:12:49.040you know, it's hard for us to imagine film not being considered an art or something serious.
00:12:53.960But back then it was this new thing and no one really knew what was going to go on,
00:12:59.280what was going to happen to it. It was just going to disappear. I mean, it's kind of like
00:13:02.220TikTok, right? We see people making TikTok videos and we think it's like really stupid and ridiculous1.00
00:13:08.060and like this can't last. Um, but then it gets elevated to this high art with, um, all the0.96
00:13:13.880camera techniques that DW Griffith uses. And so by that time, you know, after that film comes out,
00:13:20.940anime Wong is 11, 12 and, and, and that's when she's starting to get a little bit more serious
00:13:25.080about wanting to be in the films um and so she's you know still helping out at um at her father's
00:13:32.700laundry by this time you know she's had some kind of formative experiences um she tells a story of
00:13:40.320how her sister and her had gone to originally were going to the california school um local school
00:13:45.700with other white children other american children but one day they get taunted by them they're
00:13:50.600chased home and called racial slurs um their pigtails pigtails are pulled and you know they're
00:13:57.820of course by the time they get home they're hysterical and crying and don't understand like
00:14:01.680what did we do wrong like you know and their dad has to explain to them at this young age that
00:14:06.820you know that is kind of part of the experience of being Chinese in America is that sometimes
00:14:12.940you will be treated this way but there's nothing to you know you should be proud of of your heritage
00:14:18.900And then after that, they're switched to the Chinese mission school where they're with
00:14:21.840other Chinese children, but being taught by these white missionary women.
00:14:26.740And then after their normal American school, they're supposed to go to Chinese school,0.89
00:14:31.940which is also kind of funny because, I mean, I didn't grow up going to Chinese school because
00:14:36.260my mom, so my family has also been in here, been in the U.S. for several generations.
00:14:40.760So my mom doesn't speak Chinese and I didn't go to Chinese school, but I grew up in a very
00:14:45.200Asian community. So all of my classmates went to Chinese school on Saturdays and complained about
00:14:49.780it endlessly and how they hated it. And so it's really funny to see how like Anna Mae Wong went0.99
00:14:55.260through the same thing a hundred years ago. And she hated going to Chinese school. She often0.80
00:15:00.920skipped it to go to the movies. And if her teacher found out he would give her a whipping. And then1.00
00:15:05.880when she got home, her father would give her a whipping and her father would say, I think it's
00:15:11.060so funny that he would say, you know, if you're going to skip school, why don't you skip, you
00:15:15.400know, American school? Cause I don't have to pay for that. I pay for the Chinese school,
00:15:19.840but don't skip that school. Um, but anyway, so that, you know, she was already, she was a very
00:15:24.760strong willed, stubborn girl, right? She's independent minded. She didn't want to do
00:15:29.800girly things. She talks about how she liked to play baseball with the boys and marbles,
00:15:34.740and she didn't want to be in the sewing circle, which disgusted her. She couldn't stand it.0.64
00:15:40.140So she has a very strong personality from a very young age.
00:15:43.660And, you know, again, going back to she sees people making movies in the streets and just instantly knows, like, that's for me.
00:18:51.200So it's hard to, I mean, she's later said, she's always said nice things about him. So I assume that it was an amicable relationship, but, you know, she gets involved with Marshall Nealon, but that helps her in a way, right? Because he's friends with Mary Pickford and he's friends with all these, you know, all the in people, all the big people in Hollywood.
00:19:09.720So this leads to her getting cast in this film, The Toll of the Sea, in 1922.
00:19:16.580And it's a really interesting film because unlike most Hollywood productions, this one is actually being funded and made by Technicolor.
00:19:25.040And Technicolor, their prerogative is, well, we want to showcase our new color film because they're really trying to, you know, break in.
00:19:34.520You know, they want people to use their film and they've developed this whole process.
00:19:38.400And so they had made a previous film that really went nowhere and the way that the film had been processed during that time wasn't going to be practical.
00:19:48.500And they decide, well, they hire Frances Marion, highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood at the time.
00:19:54.840They come up with the idea to do a Madame Butterfly story, which is not original at all.
00:20:00.660They've already, Mary Pickford and Norma Talmadge have already starred in Madame Butterfly stories.
00:20:06.360But the idea is that they would then be able to bring in these beautiful, you know, detailed Chinese costumes.
00:20:13.040They'd have all this lush color in the environment because of the decorations and the, you know, the embroidery and the, you know, all of these things that they could bring in.
00:20:22.100And part of that is because they want to show off the color and the authenticity and the realism, instead of casting white actors in yellow face, which was, you know, pretty, you know, pretty standard, they end up casting Anna Mae Wong and other Asian actors to be in this film.
00:20:40.680And so she's playing, you know, a version of Madden Butterfly set in China instead of Japan. And, you know, she has this American lover who basically knocks her up and then leaves and comes back and says, oh, here, here, meet my American wife.
00:20:54.560And now she's this kind of shamed woman who has a mixed race child who she gives up and gives back to, you know, her her so-called husband.
00:21:02.420And Anna May Wong is 17 years old at this time.
00:21:08.400And people start to realize her talents, her abilities, because she can cry on cue.
00:21:15.100And in this film, I mean, she's crying almost constantly, but it's so moving.
00:21:20.920And even for a story that is as like stereotypical and overdone, she put her own original spin on it and really gave this kind of virtuoso performance.
00:21:31.600So when it came out, it just, it impressed people on a level that no one had expected. And the film actually ended up doing really well, despite, you know, it not being a typical Hollywood production. And that's what gets her noticed by Douglas Fairbanks.
00:21:48.960But, you know, just to go back to the toll to see for a second, I mean, it that's I mean, she's in this in the second Technicolor film ever made and the only one that's ever really watched on a on a wide scale.
00:21:59.800So that's a really important moment in cinema history, but also in her career, because, you know, Douglas Fairbanks notices her because he was doing research.
00:22:07.620He wanted to do a color film, but wasn't ready yet. But he, you know, was very impressed by her performance.
00:22:12.860And then that's how he decides to cast her as the, you know, quote unquote, Mongol slave in Thief of Baghdad.
00:22:18.960Well, and that's also, as mentioning how photogenic she is and everything, which is a major part of how she succeeded, getting roles and getting attention. But like her talent is so, that's also so important. And you really describe that so well in your book when you're describing her performances in films. But I just remember like as a child, she was at home and she was, you said she could cry on cue and she was at home practicing these things, like do it in front of the mirror, acting like she, and this is a time there's not, you know, the actor's studio.
00:22:48.000there's not like go and get your mfa in performance she's just like inventing how to be an actress and
00:22:53.800it turns out that her instincts of how to do that were correct and she had this talent for this skill
00:22:59.620that was just a new skill that was needed movie acting like it's just so like again it's just
00:23:06.080like the right place the right time it's so incredible that yeah she got noticed in it but
00:23:11.220i don't know it's like 100 years earlier that skill wouldn't have been useful very very true
00:23:17.140And she might not have known that acting was a career, right?
00:23:20.500Unless she had gone to, been taken to the theater.
00:23:23.100Whereas, you know, in 1910's Los Angeles, she can just step out her door and see people
00:24:11.060Like everyone is just kind of like a grifter mixed with sort of like, like everyone just has a random background, like everyone in Hollywood, like it's a scrappy place, which is like, again, like I have to wrap my head around like now it's seen as this like expensive, wealthy, sort of fancy place.0.89
00:24:28.100But then it was just kind of everyone inventing it as they go.
00:24:31.520And she was right there with them, like just figuring it out.
00:24:36.720And learning how to tell the story about who she was.
00:24:39.440And, um, I mean that, you know, of course it did set her apart to be Chinese because she could play up certain aspects of, of that part of her identity. Um, it made her more memorable as a, you know, as a type. I mean, but of course there is the flip side to being a type, right? You get pigeonholed in it. Um, but yeah, so she, um, you know, she's in the toll of the sea. She gets cast in the thief of Baghdad. Um, as you, you know, as you mentioned, when you saw the film, I mean, that's the incredible thing.
00:25:07.680you can watch people who don't even watch old films or silent films when they see her movies,
00:25:13.240they're so moved by her performances. Um, I mean, her talent is just so visible on screen.
00:25:21.160And I, especially I think in her silent films, because she, you know, because that's how she
00:25:25.400started. She, you know, you had to be a little bit more exaggerated in your performances, right?
00:25:31.060Because everything is visual. There's no sound. There's very few cue cards about what's going on.
00:25:37.680um but yeah so thief of baghdad she gets this role which would seem like a very minor role
00:25:43.240um but she's basically kind of like the evil the the the double agent who's supposed to be
00:25:49.220serving the princess but is really working for um the mongol prince who wants to marry her and
00:25:54.600take over her kingdom um so she's like feeding him information and um there's this famous scene
00:26:01.420where douglas fairbanks is playing um the thief right he's he's just kind of this vagabond
00:26:07.080character who is sneaking into the palace just to, to steal and rob them of, of some of their riches
00:26:14.000and, and, and make a profit off of it. But then he falls in love with the princess when he sees her
00:26:18.380sleeping and Anna Mae Wong is there because she's like her lady in waiting. And so, um, he, you know,
00:26:25.700basically holds her at knife point, you know, to stop from being, um, caught by the palace guards.
00:26:33.140And so it's a, it's a very kind of slapstick comical scene where, you know, he puts the knife to her back and then, you know, he puts her into a corner and then puts these pillows to, you know, prop up the knife so that she's stuck there and she doesn't realize that he's left.
00:26:47.180And then by the time she realized that he's like running out the door and, and, and, uh, you know, climbing down the palace walls. Um, but it was such a, I think it was just, you know, it was comic relief, but it was also her performance, her facial expressions are just so great in that scene. Um, her surprise at like realizing he's gone. Um, it just left such an impression on everyone who saw that film and that film, I mean, you know, because of Douglas, who Douglas Fairbanks was, I mean, he was the King of Hollywood.
00:27:46.580they wanted to see her in, in more things. And so that film really launched her Hollywood career.
00:27:52.920And we start to see her in all these different films in the twenties. The only issue is that
00:27:58.020she's still being cast as side character supporting roles. And sometimes she's, you know,
00:28:03.780being billed with the other, the other main actors, but you only see her for a couple of
00:28:08.020scenes. And so they're trying to capitalize on her, you know, her new star power on her name,
00:28:14.740but they're not really the studios and the directors and the producers were not really
00:28:19.020willing to give her the airtime that was commensurate with like the, the desire to see
00:28:25.680her. So, um, it becomes, so the, the, the latter part of the 1920s, um, becomes a, a very frustrating
00:28:34.420experience for anime because she's had this very, you know, she's had this early, seemingly easy
00:28:40.900success, right? She just skyrockets to the top. People clearly can see that she's talented.
00:28:47.040But now she's feeling like she's being hampered by a studio. She's working a lot,
00:28:51.240but she's getting these roles where she barely gets to do anything. And then oftentimes she's0.94
00:28:56.140killed off. Sometimes in the beginning of the film, she's just, you know, you see her for a
00:29:00.680couple of scenes and then she's dead. Can you talk about part of the reason why,
00:29:04.620I mean, there's various reasons why, but a big reason why she's not able to get a lead film is0.98
00:29:07.760because she can't do a love scene with a white person. Right. And so this is, I kind of dispute,0.98
00:29:16.140so Hollywood would say, yeah, we can't put you in a leading romantic role because you'll be
00:29:21.460opposite of a white man. And you can't, we can't show miscegenation on, on screen, which is at this
00:29:29.100time, this is pre-code. So there are no rules. So they could actually do whatever they want.
00:29:33.760Right. And they have plenty of examples. I mean, if you go back to 1915, The Cheat with
00:29:38.440Sessy Hayakawa, that is, I mean, it's, you know, there are issues with that film because it's kind
00:29:43.800of like a rape fantasy, right? Like this, this handsome Asian man, but then he's domineering0.59
00:29:49.500and is, you know, trying to rape this white woman. And, but, but, you know, but, but women1.00
00:29:53.900went crazy over Sessy Hayakawa. I mean, that film made him the first Hollywood heartthrob.
00:29:58.980And it's basically a miscegenation, if you want to use that word, an interracial love affair or whatever. Maybe not love affair, but interaction. So there was plenty of things like that that were suggestive of those types of relationships. I mean, you have Valentino. I mean, Valentino's, you know, Italian. So he's not, technically he's European, but he was still seen as, you know, Italians were still considered Latin lovers.
00:30:24.720So that, you know, and then he was playing the sheik. So there's a lot of suggestion around interracial fantasies as this forbidden fruit. So it's definitely something that was explored in Hollywood films. So this idea that Anna Mae Wong couldn't play that type of role because of her race, I think is really an excuse because she did it in, in the toll of the sea, right? She had already done it and there was no problem then.
00:30:53.060So honestly, it was something that they came up with because they just didn't want to give
00:30:58.960And I really think this has to do with whoever was at the top, like producers who are making
00:31:03.680the calls, because there were a lot of directors she worked with who loved her, who knew she
00:31:07.700was talented and they wanted to give her better roles, but they were powerless to do so in
00:31:12.100the system, you know, that in the studio system at that time.
00:31:15.620But yes, that's what she's told is like, look, we're just not going to put you in these leading
00:31:19.520roles because you're Chinese and you can't be opposite a white actor. Um, so by, you know,
00:31:26.1201927, 1928, she's also become this kind of, you know, her social life has blossomed, right? She
00:31:35.240is, because she's this more intelligent, interesting personality, um, she's hanging
00:31:41.340out with a lot of international people who are working in Hollywood. So she's hanging out with
00:31:45.940the Germans, Emile Jannings. Um, she's hanging out with some British people who are there.
00:31:50.680And she's also, she's kind of progressed in her love affairs. So she's, she met, um, Charles
00:31:56.260Rocher, who's British by birth, but had been in Hollywood for quite a while. He's a cinematographer.
00:32:01.920He's also a very exciting personality. He had, you know, filmed, um, he was filmed, he had filmed
00:32:09.460the Mexican revolution with Pancho Villa. He was like in the midst of like the war and, um, almost
00:32:15.760he gets captured and almost dies. And so he has these exciting stories and he's just returned from
00:32:20.780spending a year in Germany where he was setting kind of the Weimar filming techniques. So she
00:32:26.540meets him and they started an affair. And he's also probably bringing her into some of these
00:32:32.540more sophisticated circles. And so she meets all of these interesting people. And one of them,
00:32:38.920Karl Vollmüller, is this playwright, socialite guy who comes back and forth between Germany and
00:32:44.520Hollywood. And he basically writes a story for her. And that turns into a deal with Ufa, which
00:32:52.700is like the premier film studio in Germany. And they're like, well, why don't you come
00:32:57.860to Germany and make a film for us? And so by 1928, she's completely ready to do that because
00:33:03.820she's fed up with the way she's being treated in Hollywood. And she's like, well, I have this offer
00:33:08.040to star in a film they've written it specifically for me and you know why shouldn't I do that and
00:33:15.420you know some people tell her like you shouldn't go it's like such a huge risk if you go you'll
00:33:19.780come back and no one will know who you are um but you know given the circumstances she's like well
00:33:24.060I'm ready to go and so she's only 23 at that point but um she decides to do the film and um her older
00:33:31.200sister Lulu goes with her and so they set off um they travel to New York first and then they set
00:33:36.600sail for Germany. Of course, you know, she didn't speak a word. I was going to say, I was just like,
00:33:40.020just to know, like she did not speak German. Yeah. Yeah. And the farthest she had ever been
00:33:45.060up to that point was Canada. So, I mean, that's a huge, I mean, can you imagine like a 23 and like,
00:33:51.960you also have to set your, your sailing there. So it's going to take you about a week to even
00:33:56.840arrive. So like the anticipation of arriving someplace. And so she and her sister Lulu get
00:34:02.300to, they arrive in Hamburg and they have to get on a train to Berlin and they have to figure out
00:34:08.160how to find their train. And so they're just like listening, waiting until they hear some people say
00:34:13.120Berlin and they just, you know, follow them in that direction and they get on their train.
00:34:16.940But, you know, it ends up being, you know, the experience of a lifetime. Everyone is very excited
00:34:21.180to work with her because at that time, European cinema was starting to, they had this strategy,
00:34:28.000well, they were working together. Like, so there was a British international pictures and UFO were
00:34:33.180working together. The idea was to create films that would not only be distributed throughout
00:34:38.460Europe, but also could be distributed back to the U S they wanted to be, they wanted to compete
00:34:43.260with Hollywood essentially. So they thought, well, maybe we shouldn't start importing some
00:34:47.140Hollywood stars and let's see if that, if that works. So, so anime Wong was a part of that
00:34:51.820strategy. I want to also mention, and this was, I think from pretty early on in her career,
00:34:57.180She was a movie star. People liked seeing her in films, obviously, like some of the critics were like, it's too bad. There's not more anime Wong in this film because like people wanted to see her. But she's also a celebrity in the sense of like, here she is modeling the latest flapper fashions. Like she became known as sort of this fashion star as well, like a celebrity in that way as well. Can you talk a bit about that aspect of her?
00:35:18.800Yes. I mean, from the earliest days of her fame, she was modeling furs, modeling different dresses.0.67
00:35:27.180I mean, sometimes she would model with cars as well. There's a couple of photos of her doing that.
00:35:33.100But she also had sometimes looks that were created for her that were combining both the flapper styles of the day, but having a little bit of an Asian flair to them.
00:35:43.340And that was something that she ended up maintaining her wardrobe style throughout her career was to always have some element of Chinese design, whether it was embroidery or flowers or some or the colors.
00:35:57.660And then she even started to have her clothing embroidered with her Chinese name, which was a really lovely touch.
00:36:04.220And so she'd have it on a dress or her handbag or her hat.
00:36:08.580And so it was a very distinctive thing that she did.
00:36:11.440But I mean, she just, she also just had like an impeccable sense of style.
00:36:15.720I mean, it's hard to, you're, you, you kind of either have that or you don't and she definitely
00:36:41.140Yes. And the way she naturally poses herself. I mean, she's so good with her arms and her hands. I mean, that really is a feature of her, of the portraits of her. Like a lot of times there's something with her hands or her arms. And if anyone else tried to do those poses, we would look, you know, absolutely ridiculous. But she always looks amazing.0.99
00:37:03.240I mean, you know, when I went to college, there was this joke about one girl who had
00:37:07.200a photo of herself with her arm over her head where you could see her armpit.
00:37:11.420And I mean, Anna Mae Wong, how many photos of her are like that?
00:37:15.060There's so many where her arms are raised and, but you never complain about it.
00:37:21.520But that's the thing, like, again, like when I was looking at pictures of her last year
00:37:24.960and I, like, I kept saying facetiously, but also honestly, I'm just like, Anna Mae Wong
00:37:30.300invented having your picture taken because it was a new thing also like glamour photos like
00:37:36.000she couldn't look at vogue magazine and copy the poses she's seeing like how is she thinking of0.99
00:37:40.440these things like she just inherently knows like her and i can work in relationships with
00:37:44.640photographers she looks great but i also want to mention too like we're still in the 20s we're
00:37:48.560about to get into the 30s but while we're in the 20s i thought this was such a funny story and it
00:37:52.880was in your book that um like that she was an american raised person like she spoke she's from
00:37:58.140california like that's how she speaks and she was in silent films and people are like oh she's this
00:38:02.800like you know exotic person and then there's a thing where she comes in it's like an interview0.87
00:38:08.080with someone else what's that thief of bagdad i forget anyway and she just blows it into doing0.95
00:38:12.400this amazing outfit and she's like well hey there isn't the charleston just the bee's knees0.99
00:38:16.060and they're all like oh my god she she's a flapper and she's such a flapper she like is the flapper1.00
00:38:21.620and people just did not expect that of her like so that's the like because there's the chinese0.62
00:38:27.840is the way that she looks and the way that she's treated as an Asian person, that's different,
00:38:32.060but she's so American and that startles people, I think. Exactly. People can't get over it. There's
00:38:39.260this great line from, um, one of the reporters, she becomes friendly with Myrtle Gephardt where
00:38:44.160she's, she has this long flowery description of like how she hurt, you know, her skin's like0.94
00:38:49.220porcelain and this and that. And she's, and she's like a Yuan Chen poem that like stepped out of
00:38:55.020the page. And she was like, and then she opened her mouth and ruined it all because she realizes
00:39:00.200she's just like her. She's another flapper. She's a young woman. Um, she's up on all the slang and0.77
00:39:05.280all the cool things. Um, and I think, I think that that's something that Anna Mae Wong really
00:39:10.020leaned into during that period of her life, probably because, because people thought she
00:39:15.840was foreign, thought she was so Chinese. She was subverting their expectations, right. By being0.96
00:39:22.500even, even more extra, like flapper, like I'm going to show them, like I'm, I can outdo them.
00:39:29.980I'm more, I'm more fluent in this culture than they are. Um, and of course that changed later
00:39:34.660in time as she realized that the flapper persona was a little bit of an act and that it wasn't
00:39:40.680truly who she was. So she starts to, um, go back to her roots and, and, and relax and,
00:39:47.160and be a little bit more of herself at a certain point.
00:39:50.640But this is something else where I'm just thinking, like you see that today, again, like I keep thinking of movie stars today, but you know, somebody who has a persona and they're like, well, this is how I'm going to stand out. And this is my, and their PR team is like, yeah, really lean into the fact that you're whatever, whatever.
00:40:06.980like PR wasn't invented she's just figuring well I guess it was for like Mary Pickford but she's
00:40:12.300just inventing this herself and her instincts are all yeah exactly what people now try to do like
00:40:17.680she just had the savvy and she could look around and see like how like how am I going to make
00:40:23.060myself stand out like oh like the contrast of how I look or how people see me and perceive me
00:40:28.220with my behavior that gets more attention people find that interesting like her instincts were just
00:40:32.900like so spot on and so contemporary and so modern and that just blows me away and now we're just
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00:54:48.120So, you know, all of the effort and the resources are there,
00:54:53.240But the story itself is just so, I don't know, so schlocky and pulpy and stereotypical and completely unrealistic.0.86
00:55:07.080The script, I mean, the lines that she has to say are pretty ridiculous.0.97
00:55:10.640Like she's like basically lusting out for the blood of this British family that she's going to kill.
00:55:15.500um so you know it doesn't actually do that well the box office which i think from a from probably
00:55:23.660from the perspective the producers is like oh like she just doesn't do well here like she doesn't
00:55:28.820sell right she's not box office but really i think it was the treatment of it was the film it was
00:55:34.200like the story it was everything that they did it was just wrong it was wrong for you know people
00:55:38.960it just wasn't good in my opinion um so she anyway she does that film um she continues to do
00:55:45.220on the spot they it's by that time it's come she does a production of it in los angeles and in san
00:55:50.460francisco and then she's offered a role with marlena dietrich in shanghai express and this
00:55:56.560is a really interesting moment in her career as well because she's previously met marlena when
00:56:00.860she was in europe they met at the ryman art school ball in 1930 at this kind of raucous like um
00:56:07.580carnival type party and they have this famous photo of of them there it's her marlena and
00:56:14.300Lenny Reifensel, who then, you know, later goes on to be Hitler's director. Um, but at the time
00:56:19.520that that photo was taken, Anna Mae Wong was the most famous person among them, right? Lenny
00:56:24.860and Marlena were famous in Berlin, um, but they weren't known in the U S and it was Joseph
00:56:30.960von Sternberg who does a film with Marlena Dietrich. Um, the first, uh, technically the
00:56:35.500first sound film made in Germany, um, the blue angel. And from that film, which no one has seen
00:56:41.040in the US, he basically gets Paramount to give Marlena a deal and bring her to Hollywood. And
00:56:47.220then she, so by the time that they've met again in Hollywood now to do this film, Shanghai Express,
00:56:52.420they've kind of reversed roles. Now Marlena is this huge star. She's been made by Paramount.
00:56:59.840You know, she's, she's the big catch and anime Wong is going to play a supporting role to her.
00:57:05.560And that's, they have a gigantic pay disparity, but I think Anna Mae Wong often did between her and the white actors in her films.0.61
00:57:15.980Yes. I mean, huge pay disparity. I mean, Marlena was getting paid so much money. She got paid more than Joseph von Sternberg to do that film. So it was this crazy thing. But yes, I mean, she was, Anna Mae Wong was getting paid way less. I mean, but that was true also of Daughter of the Dragon.0.98
00:58:38.440But I personally, you know, I mean, I was curious about this.
00:58:41.160Like, if it was true, I definitely wanted to, like, find some evidence of it.
00:58:44.320And from everything that I've seen, there's just, there's nothing, there's nothing there.
00:58:50.060I mean, they weren't even very close friends.
00:58:52.400There's no mention of them ever hanging out with each other in any other setting.
00:58:56.300I mean, which Anna Mae Wong was very social.
00:58:59.020So people who were friends with her, you knew about it because they were at her Chinese New Year dinner.
00:59:04.400They were out and about at lunch in Hollywood, things like that.
00:59:07.580And there's no mention of them ever being together outside of work.
00:59:10.500And then I was able to get in touch with Marlena's daughter, who is still alive.
00:59:15.440And she was on set at Shanghai Express as a seven year old.
00:59:19.580And and she also wrote, you know, a kind of tell all biography of her mother.
00:59:23.900So she was very aware of everything that was going on in her life.
00:59:26.420And so I asked her, like, do you think they had an affair? Because that's something that people talk about a lot. She said, absolutely not. They were, they were friends, but they were not lovers. And so I, what I tried to do in the book is kind of reframe that narrative as well, because I think they were much more like friendly rivals in a way, because they were both seen as these exotic femme fatales, right?
00:59:49.660They were kind of competing for the same roles, but Anna Mae Wong didn't have a director like
00:59:55.200Joseph von Sternberg in her corner. And then there's this one anecdote that comes from another
01:00:00.500biography that when Marlena was screening an early version of Shanghai Express, she invited
01:00:06.740a friend to come with her into the screening room. And he made the mistake of saying, wow,
01:00:12.520that Chinese actress, she's really wonderful. And after he said that, then the screening room
01:00:19.020went silent. It was very chilly. So I think that there was definitely a sense of competition
01:00:26.580between the two. Yeah. No. And I, I'm glad that you, who knows the personal lives of various
01:00:33.060people, but I think, yeah, that's sort of like the lore of Anna May Wong. And I mean,
01:00:38.740you did all the research you could to try and figure out what was going on and
01:00:42.040we'll never truly know, but like, it seems like she was professional when she was on set.
01:00:47.940yeah so she you go into detail in your book about everything but basically basically hollywood not
01:00:55.760being great to her part three and she decides to go to china yes yeah so she's had a number of years
01:01:04.540of being in and out of hollywood right because she's just again the same treatment over and over
01:01:09.280again and she doesn't get cast in the good earth instead of sticking around while that's going on
01:01:14.700she says, we know it. If people want to see, if Americans want to see China, then I'll show them
01:01:19.280real China. I'm going to China and I'm going to take the cameras with me and I'm going to write
01:01:22.980about it and I'm going to have an incredible time. And that will be, you know, my own counter
01:01:28.220narrative to this whole idea that the good earth is what China is. Right. So she set sail for China0.65
01:01:33.760in 1936, her first time going back to China, her only visit, and she's there for 10 months
01:01:38.220and it becomes this life-changing experience for her. I mean, one, she doesn't expect that anyone's
01:01:44.680can know who she is there, which is not the case at all. When she arrives in Shanghai, she's
01:01:48.940completely mobbed by people. And then she also has some contentious experiences as well. When
01:01:53.620she tries to go to Hong Kong, there's a misunderstanding and it ends in this kind of0.99
01:01:58.860crowd that's there to see her becoming an angry mob and shouting like down with Wang Liosong,0.85
01:02:05.600her Chinese name, like, you know, this person, this ungrateful person, she comes here and snubs us.
01:02:11.720So there's some, some contentious experiences there.0.63
01:02:14.540She also has this, you know, banquet with the, you know, the nationalist government
01:02:19.980in Nanjing, and they kind of spend like an hour criticizing her about the roles that
01:02:24.720she's taken and why have you portrayed China in this light?
01:02:28.020And, you know, she's like, well, I don't know if you know how Hollywood works, but
01:02:31.040I didn't really get to choose my roles.
01:02:33.260But, you know, she takes all of this in stride, right?
01:02:35.340Like I think to her credit, she really listens to the things that people say and she starts
01:02:40.520to have a deeper understanding of how important her role is as an actress, that it's not just
01:02:47.580her career. It's, she's representing people, whether she likes it or not. I mean, it's an
01:02:52.240impossible position to be in, right? How could she represent, you know, Asian Americans,1.00
01:02:58.920China, and like, you know, centuries, thousands of years of history. Like, how could she be the0.92
01:03:04.180only one to represent China? But that's, that's basically what people are telling her. Like,
01:03:08.180if you portray us negatively, then everyone thinks that all Asian women are like that.
01:03:13.720So she takes this to heart. She has this, you know, 10 month experience in China.
01:03:18.000By the time she comes back to the U S she's ready to be, she's ready to criticize Hollywood very
01:03:25.720publicly. And she does so. And she says, you know, Hollywood doesn't want to cast Chinese actors to
01:03:32.060play Chinese roles. They will cast anyone else other than Chinese actors. And, um, I think the0.91
01:03:38.700thing that's really compelling about this is not only does she say it publicly, but it doesn't
01:03:44.140result in her being blacklisted that you would think that Hollywood would say, well, we just
01:03:47.740forget her. Like we're not dealing with this person. They just complain and accuse us of all
01:03:51.740these things. Instead, what she's able to do is she brokers a new deal for herself with Paramount
01:03:56.920in the late 1930s. She says, you know, she was friends with Warner O'Land who by that time was
01:04:02.020playing Charlie Chan very successfully for Fox and making them a lot of money. She says, well,
01:04:06.680why don't you put me in a detective type series? Like I could be the female version of Charlie0.84
01:04:13.180Chan. And that way I get to be the heroine. I'm the good guy. I solve these, these, these cases.
01:04:19.460And so that's basically what happens at Paramount. I mean, they don't call her, you know, like the
01:04:23.740girl, Charlie, Charlie Chan, but she ends up getting a series of roles where she's playing
01:04:28.640a heroine and she's kind of solving these, these thrillers and getting to be, um, the good guy in
01:04:36.840the end. And because they're, you know, these films are B movies, so they're not getting the
01:04:41.320same level of resources. Some of the other films she's done have, but because of that, she has more
01:04:45.720flexibility. She has more influence and control over the scripts, over the stories. And so the
01:04:51.460first film she makes when she comes back is daughter of Shanghai in 1937. Um, she gets her0.97
01:04:56.880childhood friend philip on cast as the male lead and together they you know make history they become
01:05:02.980the first asian-american actors to play a leading romantic couple in the sound era and um what's
01:05:08.660even better is at the end of the film she gets her happy ending they end up that you know the
01:05:12.200happy couple it ends up together she doesn't die for once she doesn't die and also all the bad
01:05:19.940guys are white people um so she really flips the script um and i don't you know the thing is i
01:05:26.260don't think anyone really noticed what she was doing. Like it was groundbreaking and she made
01:05:30.620history. Um, but I think that's such a significant part of her story is that she took this bad
01:05:37.840situation where she's not cast in the first sympathetic film to be made about Chinese.
01:05:43.560And instead she goes to China, does a lot of soul searching, comes back and is very like
01:05:49.120clear about her vision for what she wants the rest of her career to be.
01:05:52.360And I think this is, like, I'm really happy to talk about this part of her.
01:05:55.760Obviously, I have to talk about all of this because I love Anna May Wong.
01:05:58.640But, like, this part of her career, I think as much as she is known today,
01:06:13.580Like, the movies maybe aren't as well-known anymore.
01:06:15.780But when she came back from China, like, she, I don't know.
01:06:19.620Like, this is just an era of her life that I feel like is, like,
01:06:22.360when she's on the quarter, it's like young, glamorous 1920s anime Wong. Like her Barbie
01:06:26.620is like 1920s anime Wong. And that was maybe the height of her celebrity, but like, she didn't0.95
01:06:30.880go away. Like she. Yeah. I mean, she had incredible staying power, right? I mean,
01:06:39.860of course things got harder as she aged. I mean, well, first of all, you know, so she makes,
01:06:43.860she makes a series of films with Paramount at the end of 1930s and then it's the war years.
01:06:48.960So that was a hard time for everyone, right?
01:06:50.900She has family who has to flee back to the U.S. from China.
01:06:54.740She basically puts all of her efforts towards fundraising for China.
01:06:59.240I mean, she does like so much work during the war years.
01:07:04.440I mean, she became like an air raid warren in Santa Monica.
01:07:07.520Like she was doing so many different things.0.65
01:07:09.820And she does make two films that are, I mean, basically propaganda films to support China.
01:07:14.740And she gives all the proceeds to those films back to China aid.
01:07:18.960Um, so by the end of the war, you know, at that point, you know, 1945, she's 40 and she's been drinking and smoking for the last, you know, 20, however many years. So she's aging and that makes it very difficult for her to be able to get the, the types of roles she had previously. Right. And I, you know, everyone in Hollywood who had been a star earlier on is kind of going through those experiences, right.
01:07:45.140They're aging, their, their celebrity has faded, um, and they're trying to figure out how to recast themselves. Right. And, um, so by the 1950s, you know, when television comes along, she does, she again makes history by becoming the first Asian American to lead a television series.
01:08:02.480So she's basically, again, generated this idea of being, you know, now she's, she's playing. So it's called the Madam, sorry, the Gallery of Madam Liu Song, which is her Chinese name. She's playing a woman who runs an art gallery or an international art gallery. And she's basically going around the world solving art crimes. So she's spinning off of her detective idea again. And it's like a 13 episode series that she does with Dumont.
01:08:30.620have you been able to see on time television sorry just is that does that exist can people
01:08:35.340watch that have you been able to see any of it unfortunately no I mean we don't know if there's
01:08:44.200other copies of it's out there and lots of us are hoping that one day it turns up but basically what
01:08:49.040happened was Dumont went out of business and they went bankrupt and uh had they had some kind of
01:08:55.400legal issues and whoever, you know, had their whole, you know, catalog of shows, um, decided
01:09:02.360to dump it into the East river in New York. So that's the story is that all of those shows were
01:09:07.940lost and, uh, you know, somewhere in the, in, in the bottom of the East river that said, I mean,
01:09:14.880a lot of us are thinking like, I mean, how could it be that there's only one copy, right? There's
01:09:19.060got to be something else. So, so it might turn up. I mean, lots of things are always coming out.
01:09:24.300I think recently part of the Crimson City, which was considered a lost film, has turned up.
01:09:43.860But, you know, at that time, her health is in decline by, you know, she's suffering from cirrhosis of the liver, you know, because she's not working.
01:09:53.040she's a bit down on herself she's probably drinking a lot um so it was a difficult time
01:09:59.040but at a certain point she starts to snap out of it and gets you know is is going out for more
01:10:05.600opportunities in television she does a lot of character parts in different um tv shows and then
01:10:11.060by 1960 she's kind of rediscovered by around a young producer ross hunter at universal whose
01:10:17.560specialty is actually, um, reviving the careers of like early Hollywood stars. And so he casts
01:10:23.600her in portrait in black. I mean, she's playing a maid, which is not, not an ideal role. And it is
01:10:29.440a little bit hard to see her play such a subservient, um, you know, kind of insignificant
01:10:36.140character. Um, but she, I think she does it. She definitely puts her own spin on it. And I think0.97
01:10:42.040there's power in her performance in that film. And, um, then Ross Hunter acquires the rights
01:10:47.280to Flower Drum Song. And he wants to make history by having the first all Asian cast,
01:10:52.320principal cast. And he cast her in one of the important roles of one of the elders. And so that
01:10:57.540is basically where her career is right when she passes. She's like several weeks away1.00
01:11:02.540from beginning rehearsals for Flower Drum Song. And, um, you know, it's a, it's a, it's sad in
01:11:09.120that, yes, it's a missed opportunity, but I think from her perspective, you know, if you put things
01:11:12.620into her perspective, she was right where she wanted to be. Her career was on an upswing. She
01:11:18.440was making this comeback, um, which was like, you know, a really incredible thing to see. I mean,
01:11:23.840she was 56. Um, no one expected her to be around and making movies anymore. I mean,
01:11:30.060most of her peers were not right. They were not making films at that time. So, and she was going
01:11:35.400to make history by being in this all Asian cast. And I mean, because she passed the cast, I mean,
01:11:42.480they had, they basically had the actress who played that role in on Broadway come in and she
01:11:48.500was mixed race. She wasn't Asian. Um, but they slotted her into that role. And so unfortunately0.99
01:11:54.200that cast was not, I mean, that was the one person, the one character that was not played
01:11:59.720by an Asian actor. So then they kind of lost that status as if, as otherwise it would have been,
01:12:05.120I mean, it was still a groundbreaking film, but would have set a record had anime Wong been able
01:12:09.620to be in it um can we just talk about as well like she passed like i don't know it's like you
01:12:15.760said her career was on an upswing like she was about to do this big project like things are
01:12:20.320going pretty good but um her gravestone i think is interesting because some old hollywood stars
01:12:26.040have like these have their english language names on their graves and it's not shared
01:12:32.260with somebody else and she has a different situation. Right. So she's buried at Angelus
01:12:40.580Rosedale or Rosedale Angelus. If I got that, I might have switched the name. It's actually
01:12:47.500one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles and the first to be integrated, meaning
01:12:52.940anyone could be buried there regardless of race or religion, which is not the case with
01:12:59.180a lot of cemeteries, people don't realize that cemeteries were also segregated. You're segregated
01:13:04.240in life and you're segregated in death. And so she was actually buried with her mother and her
01:13:10.220sister, Mary, who had previously passed. And so her name's actually not on the gravestone and it's,
01:13:16.760it's their Chinese names, I believe. And so you wouldn't know that she was, I mean, people do know
01:13:22.080now that she's buried there, but it's a kind of a private, I think, I think that the family probably
01:13:26.580wanted some privacy for her. And, you know, for the book, I got to know Anna Wong, who is the
01:13:32.980niece of Anna Mae Wong. So her father, Richard Wong, was Anna Mae Wong's youngest brother. And
01:13:40.620they became very close and they lived together probably for 20 plus years at the end of her
01:13:46.860life. And he, in a way, put his own life on hold for her because he didn't want to get married or
01:13:52.340or leave her, abandon her. So he didn't get married until after she passed.
01:13:57.380But from the stories I've heard from Anna Wong, the niece, they always had people coming to their
01:14:04.180home with stories about that just want either wanting to talk to him or claiming they were
01:14:10.940related to the family or just, I mean, people, fans, but also people who were really obsessed
01:14:16.280with Anna Mae Wong. And so I think they really just wanted privacy for her to not have to
01:14:22.240experience that. But even though they were also experiencing that.
01:14:25.400So I guess that's like, yeah, the gravestone is like to her as a person, her family was always
01:14:28.940important to her. People who want to pay tribute to her as the movie star, like she's on the walk
01:14:33.100of fame, is she? I think. Yeah, exactly. So that's where I feel like that's where a fan can go to
01:14:38.740take your selfie and pay respect. Yeah. I mean, you can go to the cemetery as well. It's open
01:14:43.480to the public, but it's a little bit harder to navigate. And you have to kind of ask them
01:14:48.100where the grave is and, and that type of thing. So it's not, it's certainly not in a, it's not
01:14:53.780Hollywood forever cemetery, right? It's not in this very glitzy, well-trafficked place.
01:15:00.480Was she, in terms of the Walk of Fame, the first Asian woman?
01:15:05.220I believe so. It was her and Sassu Hayakawa. So the stars, the Walk of Fame began in 1960.
01:15:11.820so they kind of installed all the first class of people were all installed at the same time
01:15:18.840um so it wasn't exactly the way it is now where when there's a new star they get a whole ceremony
01:15:23.720um because it was like a whole bunch of stars all at once but yeah she was the first along with
01:15:29.260and she was also there because the walk of him is by grauman's chinese theater and i just
01:15:34.120she was there at the opening of grauman's chinese theater yes so she had two moments where she was
01:15:40.540involved with the opening of Groman. So she, when they began construction, she was like at the steel
01:15:47.800plant and like drilled in the first rivet because of course, you know, Sid Groman, he was a showman.
01:15:56.300So he knew what would make headlines in the newspaper. So he of course wanted to have a
01:16:00.300Chinese star come and do that. So she did that when they began construction. And then when they
01:16:05.040broke ground um on the theater uh anime wong was also there with charlie chaplin and norma talmage
01:16:12.600i was just it was a funny coincidence i was reading that part of your book just
01:16:16.320like i think the same day that it was in the news that um james hong the asian male actor who was
01:16:22.460like was born in the 20s he was getting his hands and feet ceremony at that theater and i'm like oh
01:16:27.280my god an anime wong was there and he was just being born around that same time so just like
01:16:31.140the legacy. And he was in Flower Drum Song. It was just interesting to see the continuation and
01:16:37.640also just how not long ago all of this was, Anna Mae Wong's whole life.
01:16:43.060Right. I mean, it's long and it's not long. It's like this weird thing because
01:16:48.060it feels like it's taken so long for Asian Americans to become visible
01:16:52.320in Hollywood and in mainstream media. When you think about the fact that Anna Mae Wong had been
01:16:58.840doing this a hundred years ago you're like well why did it take this lunch we were already here
01:17:02.380we were here and then we went away for whatever reason and i mean it was really powerful last
01:17:08.520year to see everything everywhere all at once win all of these awards and be at all these ceremonies
01:17:13.640and i like the i think it was the sag awards james hon gave a speech there and it just always stuck
01:17:19.260with me he told the story of how like his first film was with um oh gosh i'm gonna forget uh was
01:17:26.800with, uh, uh, Clark Gable. And he was, he was in a film with Clark Gable, which is like,
01:17:35.380that's old Hollywood, basically. I mean, not the earliest Hollywood, but pretty, you know,
01:17:40.140classic Hollywood. Um, and he said, yeah, you know, producers used to say, we're not box office.
01:17:45.620Asians are not box office. And he's like, well, look at us now. Um, and I think it's just so
01:17:50.640incredible to be able to see someone who's, who's seen that within their lifetime and being able to,
01:17:56.340to be a part of that transformation exactly and then you you use this you mentioned this quote
01:18:00.940in your book as well but also I just was thinking of it now too like Michelle Yeoh in everything
01:18:05.400everywhere all at once she said when she read the script like it brought her to tears because she's
01:18:08.600like finally somebody like a project where I can display all the things I can do yeah and it took
01:18:14.660and she's been so successful she's been in so many things Michelle Yeoh but it took her to that point
01:18:19.380to actually be given a role that worthy of her talents exactly exactly yeah yeah no i mean hearing
01:18:28.060her say those words it gave me chills because it was like that is i feel like that's what anime
01:18:33.660wong would say you know finally somebody understood that i could do all of these things i'm also human
01:18:39.340so at the end of these episodes i have this scale and i i gave you a heads up we're going to be0.73
01:18:45.620doing this so to yes to add anime wong officially to my pantheon of scandalous women who i've
01:18:52.160talked about on this podcast um so there's four categories i think we're gonna have a really1.00
01:18:56.360good discussion about significance but the first category is scandalousness how scandalous was she
01:19:03.460seen by and this is like because she was an international figure so if we think and she
01:19:09.280lived for quite a while like so in the different parts of her life like how to her father i think
01:19:14.640she was very scandalous. But then also it's like, I think all actors were to a certain extent,
01:19:19.820but I don't know. So how, on a scale of zero to 10, how scandalous would you score her?
01:19:25.100Yeah. I mean, so that's something I think that changed throughout her lifetime. I think like,0.99
01:19:29.780if you were to score her when she first started in Hollywood, I think she'd be more scandalous.
01:19:35.200She was younger. She had a lot of affairs with people, especially from her parents' perspective,
01:19:40.360of it was scandalous. Like, what are you doing? This is crazy. Um, but then I think later, you
01:19:45.380know, she mellowed out and became a very, I think she had a very decorous reputation. I mean,
01:19:51.840she kept a lot of her personal life under wraps. So, uh, so scandalousness, I would probably say0.99
01:19:59.420like maybe like a six or a seven. I'm going to say 6.5, but yeah, cause if you add, yeah,
01:20:07.880I don't know. And a lot of it was her own actions were like scandalous to people who are just like
01:20:13.540independent woman living on her own. But some of it was sort of like she didn't make the choice to
01:20:17.860wear like the bikini that she's in in the Thief of Baghdad. Right. Like that wasn't her. She wasn't
01:20:22.980running around like that. It's just what she's given to wear. The next category is scheminess.1.00
01:20:30.600And that entails just a person with a plan who's able to, who's able to pivot with what
01:20:37.660life throws at them and to come up with a plan and to be successful.
01:20:40.900And in that context, I think she was very successful.
01:35:18.980I'm really excited to have this person on next week.
01:35:21.700So just think about who you think that might be.
01:35:23.840It's a requested collab that people have suggested.
01:35:29.180It's somebody who I'm sometimes mistaken for.
01:35:32.880Anyway, I did take a picture next week's episode of me and this person talking to prove that we're not the same person, that we are two different people.
01:35:39.760Anyway, so stay tuned next week for a super amazing episode.
01:35:43.620And go and buy and read Not Your China Doll.