Reconciling Dual Identities

archival collections, internet friends & Anna May Wong fandom with Rebecca Grace Lee

Rebecca Grace Lee is one of the craftiest internet sleuths I’ve ever met. She’s also one of the few people whose love of Anna May Wong rivals—or dare I say surpasses—my own. She’s the woman behind AMW’s largest online following on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. Whew! Did you catch all that?

at left: Rebecca Grace Lee; at right: her handiwork on Instagram as @annamaywongfans

I’m always impressed by the rare and unusual photographs that Rebecca unearths for our viewing pleasure. The Gallery of Anna May Wong, her film and television archive on YouTube, has also proven invaluable to me as I scoured AMW’s filmography. And I have often turned to her when I’ve gotten stuck on a research question. 

As I was writing Not Your China Doll, Rebecca very kindly opened up her personal collection to me. She also later served as my research assistant when I was too far away to get to a manuscript sitting in the Hoover Institution Library at Stanford University. Neither of us could believe our eyes when she found the pages that debunked another biographer’s claims! (More on that another time.) It felt like we were making history together. 

Here, we finally had a chance to sit down and talk about what started Rebecca down the path of Anna May Wong fandom. 

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When did you first learn about Anna May Wong? And what about her inspired you to become such a devoted fan?

Although it seems like I've "known" about Anna May Wong my entire life, my "fan journey" really started in the early 2000s when I was in seventh or eighth grade. For our history class, we had to write a paper about ethnic groups in the U.S. I chose to concentrate on Chinese Americans as I am a Chinese American myself. I took my research seriously and checked out several books from the library. One of those books contained a remarkable, if brief, list of well-known Chinese Americans toward the end. Anna May Wong, an actress from the golden age of cinema, was one of them. I made a note of her and later searched the internet for more information. I came across captivating images of Anna May Wong when I made my first visit to one of the fan sites, which is no longer active. The pictures were a little blurry. She still had that "It girl” factor, in my opinion. I was surprised that I didn't instantly become a devoted fan.

the first Anna May Wong website Rebecca Grace Lee visited in the early 2000s, via the Wayback Machine

I started using LiveJournal, a social network website devoted to personal blogs and online communities, in 2006–2007. Back then, LiveJournal was very popular and had communities based on a wide range of interests and passions. One of my emerging passions? Old Hollywood and classic movies, with a focus on Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe. I adored every fan-made work that was produced on these sites, such as user icons and avatars, fan videos, and pic spams. Still, in October 2007, I thought that LiveJournal was missing an Anna May Wong community, so I started a photo blog community called Anna May Daily.

Anna May Daily, Rebecca Grace Lee’s LiveJournal site devoted to Anna May Wong

Her film and television work were more difficult to access at the time than her photographs. I first saw The Toll of the Sea during this period when YouTube was starting to gain popularity. Because Anna May Wong is Chinese and American, I could identify with her dual identities. Like my family, she was able to track her roots back to Toisan in southern China. Like me, she was born and raised in California. Her family was quite large. So is my family. I suppose I was attempting to gain an understanding of the person I am. Despite being born in San Francisco, I have often been questioned on whether I am truly American or not. During my childhood, I had unwittingly turned into a self-hating Asian, which still shocks and saddens me now. I wanted to fit in better, I wanted to be "normal," not Asian. So Anna May Wong helped me reconcile my cultural identities in a sense. So they’re not at odds with each other.

Shanghai Express on the marquee at the Stanford Theatre

I ran Anna May Daily from 2007 until 2011. I got to meet Elaine Mae Woo, the filmmaker of Frosted Yellow Willows, one of the Anna May Wong documentaries. I got acquainted with Erik Hai who later formed an Anna May Wong Facebook group with Conrad Doerr, one of Anna May Wong's former tenants at Moongate. It was a delightful pleasure to see Shanghai Express with a live crowd at the Stanford Theatre. I shared pictures of Anna May Wong as well as information about AMW-related events taking place globally. Even though I was unable to attend most of the events, I always enjoyed posting them and hoped that one day I might be able to go. 

Generally, other AMW admirers expressed gratitude for the blog. They wanted to know where I found the pictures I shared or how I learned about the global happenings. Even now, Google Alerts and Search continue to be my go-to tools!

Rebecca Grace Lee’s collection of Anna May Wong VHS tapes and DVDs, circa 2020

I began having bouts of depression in 2011, which led me to completely cease posting. It would be nine years before I took up AMW fandom again. The pandemic struck in 2020, and all of a sudden, I lost my job. I was at home. I started buying any movie I could get my hands on, though I'm not entirely sure what made me want to start gathering everything about Anna May Wong. Then, in the summer of 2021, I uploaded Island of Lost Men (1939), my very first YouTube video, on a whim. I gave the channel the moniker The Gallery of Anna May Wong, a pun on the title of her own TV show from the 1950s. I launched the Anna May Wong Fans Instagram in October of 2021. I came upon your blog piece about an Asian woman who was mistakenly identified as Anna May Wong in November 2021 through a tweet. That's when I initially got in touch with you and posted supporting information to back up your verifiable evidence. I took a month or two off from Instagram before returning to the platform in January 2022, when I started posting more frequently. I have continued it up until this point.

What exactly about AMW made me want to be such a big fan? Her tenacity and commitment to her work. I didn't become a fan right away; it took some time to develop, and I took a number of breaks in between. She's kind of like an auntie guiding me through life, as strange as that may sound. Thus, I knew she wouldn't criticize me if I needed to step away from the AMW fandom to concentrate on my mental health or to reassess. She would always be there to welcome me back whenever I felt ready to pick up the fandom again. I'm quite happy I did. AMW has enriched my life in so many ways.

I admire your courage in sharing some of the personal challenges you’ve faced. I also love hearing about your journey with Anna May Wong, which makes me reflect on my own. I first learned of her existence as a college freshman during a summer internship at the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles, which I write about in my book. For many years, she continued to be a presence in my life, hovering somewhere in the background. I did a bit of research on her for my senior thesis but in the end none of her films fit into my argument. It took me a while before I had worked up the nerve and done enough research to tackle her life in a book-length work. When Not Your China Doll finally comes out this March, it will have been almost exactly 20 years since I first learned about her!

And by the way, I also watched Shanghai Express for the first time at the Stanford Theatre! I love that place so much, especially the old school organ player who pops up from the stage during the intermission in between double features. Wouldn’t that be funny if we had gone to the same screening?

Over the years, you have been collecting Anna May Wong memorabilia, photographs, magazine articles, and other ephemera—maybe enough to put together in an archive one day. Can you tell us about some of your most interesting and/or treasured pieces?

Generally speaking, few people are aware that Anna May Wong appeared in theater productions like The Circle of Chalk and On the Spot, particularly during her early career. I therefore make an effort to buy pieces related to these plays as soon as I come across them. The Circle of Chalk was AMW's first attempt at stage acting; however, some considered it a failure because of her thick Californian accent. She shared the stage with a young Laurence Olivier. According to harsh theater reviews, she didn't seem or sound Chinese enough. Even still, I like to save things like reviews and playbills because I believe she was proud of her work, even though no one acknowledged it. She took classes and developed a British-tinged American accent in response to the criticism. For On the Spot, Anna May had her greatest dream come true when she was able to work with her childhood idol, Crane Wilbur, one of the actors from The Perils of Pauline (1914) serials.

clippings about Anna May Wong’s role in the plays The Circle of Chalk (1929) and On the Spot (1930-31), courtesy of Rebecca Grace Lee’s collection

You write about the Cosmic Productions tour in your book. A photo of Anna May and a bunch of silent film stars cleaning some train cars has circulated around the internet. It was part of a publicity tour that was held across the U.S. and Canada to promote these silent film stars. But it was poorly run, and it ended not too long after. This is a group photo of Anna May Wong and some Cosmic Productions tour participants that I purchased.

photo of the Cosmic Productions troupe, courtesy of Rebecca Grace Lee’s collection

The caption reads: 

ONLY YESTERDAY – How many old time film celebrities do you recognize in this picture? Well, the girl in the leopard skin coat, center, is Helen Holmes, once a serial queen, who has begun a comeback attempt as an extra in Paramount’s “Poppy,” starring W.C. Fields. On her right is Ruth Stonehouse, and peeking over Miss Stonehouse’s shoulder is Anna May Wong. Bryant Washburn is third from right, Phyllis Haver fifth from right, and the curly headed fellow third from left is Cullen Landis. Photo from Miss Holmes’ souvenir collection.

I’ve never seen this photo before. What a gem!

Anna May Wong was a prominent cast member in On the Spot, as previously mentioned. On the Spot ran on the West End in the UK before its premiere in the United States. The fact that Charles Laughton plays the gangster in the West End production intrigues me. Do you remember Charles Laughton as the customer who reports dirty dishes in Piccadilly (1929)? Why are the dishes dirty? Instead of doing the dishes, Shosho (Anna May Wong) is found dancing in the scullery. Later, Anna May Wong would assume the role of Minn Lee, which Gillian Lind had initially taken on in the West End production.

a playbill for the U.S. staging of On the Spot at the Forrest Theatre on Broadway, courtesy of Rebecca Grace Lee’s collection

Seeing different kinds of items from all over the world, like this tobacco card from Chile, is what I enjoy most about collecting. These collectibles frequently include rare photos of Anna May Wong.

tobacco card, courtesy of Rebecca Grace Lee’s collection

In the 1940s during WWII, Anna May went on tour with the USO. This stamp from Grenada was issued in 1992 in honor of the USO's 50th anniversary. What a lovely stamp!

Grenada stamp featuring Anna May Wong, courtesy of Rebecca Grace Lee’s collection

I also collect musical works that mention Anna May Wong. The composer Constant Lambert devoted an entire album of his work to her. The CD and LP versions of Lambert’s Eight Poems of Li-Po are both in my possession. A song called "Drop That Name" from the soundtrack of Bells Are Ringing, the musical and the film, mentions Anna May Wong. "Movie Stars" by The Growling Tiger, a calypso song on Roosevelt in Trinidad, also mentions her.

at left: musical works related to Anna May Wong, from Rebecca Grace Lee’s collection; at right: the lyrics to “Movie Stars”

You put a lot of work into all of your channels, posting regularly to Facebook and Instagram and maintaining one of the most complete streaming archives of Anna May Wong’s films on YouTube. How much time do you put into this work and what keeps you at it? What has the response from other fans been like?

I dedicate at least 2-3 hours a week to just creating content to post to social media platforms. But content preparation is only one step in the archive development process. The least glamorous—or occasionally enjoyable but annoying—aspect of research is conducting simple searches on search engines. Most of the information I'm looking for is there. It could take me hours and hours to find something uncommon, like Anna May’s radio appearances or interviews. I frequently run into dead ends when looking for rarities and have to take long pauses before trying again. Then I pick up the searches again after some time. This was the process for the majority of her guest spots on television, which I eventually located.

I’ve created eBay alerts for her flicks in case any of them surface—especially the rarer ones. If a movie, like Drifting (1923), is in great shape, there's no reason to upgrade it. The process of "upgrading" a video to high definition and correcting various problems, including interlacing scan lines or jerky camera movements, is known as upscaling. It can take hours, days, or even a week to upscale! I've spent a good deal of time improving the quality of the videos on The Gallery of Anna May Wong.

Anna May Wong as Rose Li in Drifting (1923)

I normally find the majority of Anna May Wong’s images on eBay. My computer failed in 2010 or 2011, so I lost thousands and thousands of pictures of her that I had saved when I maintained the AMW LiveJournal blog. Fortunately, most of these shots can be found on the web in some form or another. Typically, when I search for Anna May Wong, I combine her name with the term I'm looking for, like "Anna May Wong + hat." Rare pictures of her can typically be found on Worthpoint and other non-eBay auction websites. I often spend hours saving and organizing pictures.

Although continually working on my archive seems like a large undertaking, I don't see it that way. I see it as a resource for other fans; I'm not compensated to do independent research or maintain an archive (but occasionally I receive donations on Ko-fi). Numerous admirers, whether new or seasoned, are discovering or re-discovering Anna May Wong, gaining fresh insights, and relishing the images and videos of her that they would not have otherwise had access to.

Naturally, something unexpected did result from my work in the archives. My social life got better. What connection does that have to AMW? Everything. I was given a diagnosis of OCD, anxiety, and schizophrenia in 2013. Of course, I was aware of AMW prior to receiving a mental health diagnosis. But because of her, I gradually started making new acquaintances, stepping beyond my comfort zone, and interacting with other fans when I picked up my fan activities again.

Other AMW supporters have responded with tremendous enthusiasm. They crave every last bit of Anna May Wong they can get. I've communicated with followers worldwide—I even mailed a postcard to a fellow fan in Denmark! Developing friendships with other AMW fans at events is one of the reasons I love posting about said events. I'm sure the social butterfly Anna May Wong would be pleased with me!

I feel the same way. I’m so grateful for all the wonderful people Anna May Wong has unintentionally brought me into contact with. I’ve learned so much from your insights and the materials you’ve collected in your archive—thank you for that, Rebecca!

Anna May Wong as Mah in Pavement Butterfly (1929)

Now, here’s a tough one. If you had to choose, which films would you rank among Anna May Wong’s top 5?

1. Pavement Butterfly (1929) For the striking conclusion in which she leaves with her sense of agency, innocence, and dignity intact. The cast, settings, and Anna May are all expertly portrayed in the cinematography.

2. Java Head (1934) This groundbreaking movie tackles issues such as drug use, violence, mixed-race marriage, religious divides, Asian fetish/yellow fever, obsession, and death. Anna May got to kiss her white male co-star!

3. Daughter of Shanghai (1937) In this underrated film, Anna May Wong and childhood friend Philip Ahn star as the heroes and love interests. A must-see for all cinemagoers!

4. Dangerous to Know (1938) Anna May plays Madame Lan Ying in this film adaptation based on the play On the Spot. Her farewell scene with Akim Tamiroff's character, Stephen Recka, is heartbreaking. Thanks for the memories, indeed!

5. Shanghai Express (1932) In this film, she survives, defeats the villain, and emerges victorious! The cast is among one of the top ensembles in Hollywood prior to the Hays Code.

A special note goes to Drifting (1923). Although it came out before The Thief of Bagdad (1924), this movie demonstrates Anna May’s brilliance even early in her career. She isn’t the main character; however, she utilizes every second of her screen time.

You can follow Rebecca Grace Lee on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, or subscribe to The Gallery of Anna May Wong, her channel on YouTube.

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Join Us for a Live Q&A on January 21, 2024

Can’t get enough Anna May Wong in your life? Join Rebecca and me for a discussion of all things Anna May Wong, including my book Not Your China Doll, over livestream in January. We’ll also be taking questions from you and other audience members, so please tune in! You can RSVP by registering here. In the meantime, feel free to share your questions with us in advance in the comments below. See you in 2024!