A Melancholy Anna May Wong, Early 1937

This picture of Anna May Wong ran in numerous US newspapers in early 1937.

If you think Anna May looks rather melancholy and a little sad in this picture you’d be right. She was fed up – with Hollywood and America. After not being cast in the Hollywood adaptation of Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth (German actress Luise Rainer got the part she wanted) she went to China for a year. But that wasn’t all great either as she met with many fans but also some protests about parts she’d played previously that some felt cast China and the Chinese in a poor light. When this photograph was released Anna May told the papers she was unhappy, thought it unlikely Hollywood would ever give her any positive or challenging roles and that she wanted to go back to China. Fortunately she didn’t, as several months later the Japanese invaded.