The glossy imagery of early Hollywood often hid ugly realities behind studio soundstages. A new biographical study, Anna May Wong: An Intimate Portrait, by historian Shirley Jennifer Lim, re-examines the fraught relationship between Chinese American screen trailblazer Anna May Wong and German star Marlene Dietrich during the making of their 1932 classic, Shanghai Express.
Directed by Josef von Sternberg, the pre-Code thriller earned three Academy Award nominations and stands as a high-water mark of Depression-era melodrama. Both women played courtesans travelling together aboard a train journeying from Beijing to Shanghai in the middle of civil strife.
The production brought together two performers navigating the American studio apparatus from very different standing positions. Wong, born in Los Angeles to Taishanese parents, faced institutional barriers and structural wage inequality that followed her throughout her professional career. Dietrich, by contrast, arrived in California under studio protection as Von Sternberg’s primary discovery.
Lim notes the stark financial disparity on the production. Dietrich received $78,166 for her central role, while Paramount paid Wong $8,100.
Private Slurs Behind Soundstage Niceties
On set, the two actors developed what Lim terms a “fleeting friendship.” They shared quiet moments between takes, drinking iced coffee through paper straws, smoking, and chatting on folding chairs. Dietrich even asked Paramount head wardrobe designer Travis Banton to alter one of Wong’s on-screen kimonos to make it fit her more flatteringly.
Accounts recorded by Dietrich’s daughter, Maria Riva, show that this camaraderie hid profound private contempt.
In her 1992 memoir, which Lim cites in the new volume, Riva recalled a family dinner during the production period. When asked if she had read Pearl S. Buck’s best-selling novel The Good Earth, Dietrich responded with fury.
“‘Is that the one about China?’ When my father answered that it was, she gave an exasperated snort,” Riva wrote.
Dietrich launched into a racist outburst at the table: “‘China here! China there! What is this obsession with China? The whole lot is swarming with slant-eyed people! If I see one more yellow face, I am going to throw up!’”
Riva recorded that her mother promptly walked to the kitchen to serve more food, while Von Sternberg and Riva’s father brushed off the episode and shifted the conversation to Nobel Prize winners and lighting diffusion.
Systemic Exclusion in Classic Hollywood
The hostility extended into casual off-screen gifts. Von Sternberg presented Dietrich with a derogatory “coolie doll” as a companion piece to another racist figurine she kept, items she retained throughout her working life.
While Shanghai Express became an undeniable commercial hit that elevated Dietrich to the peak of Hollywood stardom, it failed to break the racial barriers restricting Wong.
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The box-office numbers prompted studio executives to commission multiple films featuring Asian characters. In productions like The Hatchet Man, The Mask of Fu Manchu, and The Son-Daughter, white performers wore makeup to take those parts.
When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer adapted The Good Earth into a major feature, producers passed over Wong and cast German-born actor Luise Rainer in the lead Asian role, an assignment that yielded Rainer an Academy Award.
Anna May Wong: An Intimate Portrait, published by Abrams Books, is available now in bookshops and online retailers.
