italic’>Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong,” the 2007 book by Anthony B. Chan. “I would worm my way through the crowd and get as close to the cameras as I dared. I’d stare and stare at these glamorous individuals, directors, cameramen, assistants, and actors in greasepaint, who had come down into our section of town to make movies.”

  She was so obsessed with acting that she dropped out of school to pursue this career. She looked older than her age and found work doing bit parts. She was finally given a screen credit in 1921 when director Marshall Neilan gave her the role of Toy Ling, the abused wife of Chin Gow – played by white actor Lon Chaney in Bits of Life.

 Nevertheless, her breakthrough role was still a clichéd one, as the Asian woman who sacrifices her life for the love of a Caucasian man.

Laurence Olivier, The Circle of Chalk, and was roundly criticized for her voice and singing, so she hired a professor to teach her to speak the King’s English. And having taken lessons in German and French, she carved a career for herself in European films where racism – at least in the world of arts – was less marked. She became a media star.