Product Description

The first full-length biography ever written about the life and times of Anna May Wong, America's most famous film actress of Chinese heritage, the book is unique not only because it is told from the sensibility and perspective of an Asian American, but also because it is from the view of an experienced scholar, writer, and filmmaker.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1858554 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Customer Reviews

High Priced for Misinformation
Mr. Chan seems to have a rather noteworthy career in Chinese-American History, and he drew a lot from that to add into his book on Anna May Wong.
I don't know that 'Perpetually Cool' relates to Anna May by those that have researched her at length. He titles one chapter, "The Journey Ends Halfway" based on his believing that Anna May was in an episode of "Danger Man", known America as "Secret Agent", which was called, "The Journey Ends Halfway". I have viewed this episode, and the Anna May Wong that was in this was not the Anna May Wong of whom he writes. An Anna May Wong appeared in a few movies and TV shows, but was a much younger person, perhaps capitalizing on the name of the more famous one. To title a chapter based on an error, when there are so many other choices he could have used, shows poor research.
Omissions on a star are one thing. Erroneous info is another.
Having researched Anna May Wong for over thirty years I was disappointed at the direction he took. In a Wyatt Earp TV episode, he calls her part an 'Antiracist Activist'. What a euphemism!! Anna May played China Mary, who was the feared leader of the Chinese community in Tombstone. She tried to protect Chinese criminals from white justice. Activist is someone who is part of or leads campaigns. The Chinese Community in days of old did everything they could to prosper quietly in a white world.
In short, he seems to have slanted Anna May's life to his thinking and beliefs.
A caption under a publicity photo of her says "Daoist Mood", as if he knew what was on her mind or the photographer's. It's a publicity photo. Nothing more. Nothing less. This kind of thought pattern runs throughout. Anna was a follower of Christian Science.
$45.00 is a lot to pay for a book with 16 photos, none of which broke any new ground, though I enjoyed the shot of Anna in London's Limehouse district.
He did a lot of superficial research, which rang of "Round up the usual suspects." Some of the articles he based his bio on had erroneous facts in it, which upon digging deeper, he would have found.
Though I am critical of his work, it is welcome.

Too Cool for Words ... Apparently
Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong, 1905-1961 (Filmmakers Series), by Anthony B. Chan is not a fun read.

The book is not a breezily written show biz bio to be read at a gallop, and enjoyed as a collection of well-known facts, juicy gossip, and scandalous speculation about its subject, nor is it intended to be so.

It is by far the most ambitious of the three books currently available on Anna May Wong, and one written with a degree of academic rigor. In it, Chan attempts to examine the life of his subject through her own words and extant examples of her art, and to place her in various historical, theoretical, artistic, philosophical and political contexts. It is a serious (perhaps overly serious) scholarly work featuring a filmography, notes on sources and many quotes from vintage reviews and writings, and while there may be a few inaccuracies, it is an overall welcome addition to the available literature on Wong.

Chan's 312-page tome is organized in three sections, and comprises eighteen chapters, each treating an aspect of Wong's biography, thought, milieu and her films and related work. It also weaves in exhaustive (and at times exhausting) discourses on subjects such as the representation of Asians in European and European American literature and entertainment, the theatrical tradition of "yellowface" (non-Asians playing the part of Asians), the rise of modern China, prostitution in colonial Shanghai, the basic principles of Taoism and Confucianism, and lots more.

The chapters can be read as independent essays, and there is a certain amount of repetition of facts and theories and interpretive conclusions between them.

Chan's approach and methodology is informed by the theories of a number of cited postmodern writers, particularly those of the late Edward Said, author of the influential text, Orientalism. To borrow a few ideas and phrases from Said, it would appear that Chan is attempting a recovery of a history hitherto either misrepresented or rendered invisible by a quasi-colonial hegemony, and an exposure of stereotypes of "the Other" and the actualities they've perpetuated and informed.

It can also be said that Chan has an axe to grind with "European American Hollywood," "European American actors," "European America" and all who done Wong wrong. He cites examples of the tendency by Hollywood--and society at large--to perpetuate racist notions of Asians as villainous, inscrutable, and generally unsavory, and how these tendencies inhibited the artistic career of Anna May Wong.

While insidious racism and the casting practices of her day undoubtedly limited Wong's choice of quality roles, Chan seemingly does not care to stress that there were many Europeans and European Americans--intellectual and cultural heavyweights on the order of Walter Benjamin, Carl Van Vechten and Evelyn Waugh--who actually admired, championed, celebrated and befriended Wong, and for all the right reasons. He does hit us over the head--relentlessly--with examples of how he feels she was belittled, slighted, and passed over by the European American Hollywood hegemony.

Chan's book is best when he allows his subject to speak for herself, and aficionados of Wong and her films will be grateful for the generous quotes from Wong's interviews and writings presented here. Chan himself is best when he writes objectively, and some of his descriptions of Wong's acting are quite vivid. Chan seems less convincing in his interpretive writing, and some of his observations seem overstated and thesis-bound.

Anna May Wong was, by all accounts, an amazing person; cultured, witty, extravagantly talented, and someone who exhibited an amazing drive to succeed. (How many little girls dream of stardom, and how few achieve it?) Though her talents were in many ways squandered, she worked in practically every entertainment medium extant in her lifetime (Wong starred in Hollywood's very first Technicolor feature at age 17 in 1922, and had her own network television detective series in 1951!), and found work in her chosen profession from her teen years to her death in late middle age. Wong was indeed "perpetually cool;" one wishes that Chan's book was perhaps more balanced, more lively, and more successful in conveying those very characteristics it purports to celebrate in its subject.

Full of theory without adequate life stories
This book is a little bit dry. big theories shadow the inadequate narratives about the subject. Especially, the Daoist analaysis does not make sense for me. Follow Chan's logic, everyone could be a Daoist, at least at certain moment of your life. Wish the author got deeper in his research.

It seems that Chan befriended Wong's surviving brother, why have not any oral materials through interviews been included?