Six Peach Trees for Madame Chiang – Luise Rainer, The Good Earth and the China Relief Legion

Luise Rainer got the role in the film adaptation of Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth that Anna May Wong desperately wanted and was denied – O Lan. Rainer got the Oscar for Best Actress, in yellowface, which must have rankled with poor Anna May. The excuse was that as O Lan had to kiss Wang (played by white actor Paul Muni) the Hays Code, which prescribed miscegenation and inter-racial kissing, would prevent her from being cast. They offered Anna May the part of Lotus, a rather unsympathetic character – Anna May declined it pointing out that giving an unsympathetic character to an ethnically Chinese actress in a film who’s leads were all white actors in yellowface was ridiculous.

The year the film came out, 1937, Rainer sent six peach trees to Madame Chiang. Quite why I’m not sure, but apparently Madame Chiang had said she admired Rainer’s performance in the film. Dusseldorf-born Rainer, who was a staunch anti-fascist, did remain a friend of China – the Japanese invasion occurred in 1937 of course. In February 1938 Rainer hosted a benefit at Clara Bow’s It Cafe in Hollywood for Chinese war orphans and, in 1943, she attended a reception at the Ambassador Hotel for China’s Madame Chiang. It was held in connection with a starry China relief fundraiser staged at the Hollywood Bowl. She was later given an award of recognition from the China Relief Legion for her humanitarian efforts during World War II; the award (below) is signed at the bottom by Madame Chiang.