Even if this profession wasn’t so indecent, her father said, you’d have nowhere to climb. I’ll find my own way, she said to him, refusing to show she was shaken. How will you survive? he asked. You are completely out of touch with reality.
* * *
—
ONE AFTERNOON HER father had held up a newspaper to her face.
Sit, he said. You think I’m blind?
A photograph of her in a brassiere and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in a turban had been making its rounds, not only in local papers, but even those in China. That’s a publicity picture for our new movie, Anna May explained, it’s nothing personal. Her father said: Who is going to want used goods, Liu Tsong?
He showed her the Cantonese clipping: ANNA MAY WONG STRIPS FOR WHITE MAN.
She wanted to know: What does what I wear or whom I see have to do with China?
Her father did not answer that.
All artists are perverts, he said. You might not see it now, but I can’t condone such behavior in my household any longer. I have arranged for you an amicable solution, he added, passing her an envelope. When she opened it and saw several photographs of respectable Chinese men, she threw the whole matchmaking packet to the ground like it had burned her hands and started to scream as loudly as she could.
Liu Tsong, her father exhorted, be civil!
You be civil, she cried, backing away from him, working herself into such a fit she had to be taken to the hospital. From the hospital she checked herself into a hotel. It was safer there. Her whole life still lay ahead of her, if she was willing to protect it from the people who claimed to know her best. Other than that she had been born their daughter, what did they see in her?
Her mother pleaded with her to come home.
Someone’s wings have hardened, her father mocked, referring to her in the third person even though she was in the same room. I’m telling you, she thinks she’s too good for us now.
Shortly after, Anna May signed the lease to an apartment.
Moving out had been well within her means for a few years now; her paycheck was paltry compared with that of the other stars, but it was still more than the hand laundry earned in a month. Living at home was an embarrassment that cut both ways now that her fans had begun to show up at Wong Sam Sing’s Chinese Hand Laundry. She was embarrassed to be seen in the laundry; her father was embarrassed that she had fans. She’d not dared to move out sooner because of what had been said when she brought up the matter. Only loose women live on their own, her father said, outside of marriage and family. At home we do everything for you, her mother added. Where else will you get that?
Living alone was a revelation Anna May reveled in wholly.
Her apartment she decorated not just to her tastes, but to how she imagined the apartment of an actress ought to be. With care she considered the tone and shape of each thing she put around herself. The apartment had to be modern, individualistic, contrarian. Far Eastern garnishes littered her household with careless precision, to be read by the right people ironically and by the wrong people literally. Bold abstract artwork on the walls, bonsai in porcelain troughs, traditional calligraphy scrolls whose words she could not fathom. Home was a blank slate she could fill in with how she wanted herself to be. The last thing she wanted was to look down on her family as she learned to like herself, but was there any other way out of that odd-angled corner she’d backed into? The setup was painful in its clarity: either she disappointed them, or she disappointed herself.
In her new bedroom Anna May had a handsome vanity table of rosewood.
It had a large triple-paneled mirror with beveled glass edges and a matching rosewood stool. She sat here after watching the roles first-billed actresses got to play, as she thought about how she would have interpreted them, had only she been allowed to audition.
Repeating these leading-lady lines, she never needed to drop articles, vowels, and adverbs the way they liked to make her do when she was performing as a Chinese side character.
Me likey chop su-ey, you no likey?
She might not have been able to change the lines, but she never played it dumb, servile, or cloying, when it would have been so easy to indulge that which the studios wanted. She played it sharp. The lonely whetstone she threw her edge against: Chaplin.
Unbeknownst to him, or anyone, for that matter, he was her sparring partner in becoming a better performer. Practice might not make perfect, but you were bound to improve if you worked at it. She bought her own projector and all his reels, took notes on his keen timing and wry performance. Abjection could be comic, but she recognized in his irony a certain decency she wanted for herself: the world is not as you want it to be, but it is still the one you wake up to and conduct yourself through with dignity.
Was this as Chaplin intended, or was she reading him too reactively?
Actors seemed to have more room for characterization in their roles than actresses. Anna May never wanted to be a prop, playing for chic, but no one seemed to care about the difference between a good actress and a bad one, as long as the actress looked good on camera.
What she loved about acting was not the attention. Had it been up to her, she would not have gone to any of the parties or posed for any of those pictures, but she had been told they were necessary in order to maintain a certain image. If that was not looked after, it could hurt her bookings. What Anna May loved about acting was the craft. Even after all these years, to have a fresh script in hand and a new character’s skin to get under gave her a thrill, no matter how few lines she had or how disproportionate her salary was compared with everyone else’s on the credit roll. The process of living truthfully under imaginary circumstances was what she was addicted to. Could a bad actress suffer as much as a good one?
十二
Anna May flinched as she heard Jo shout, “Cut!”
You’re faking it, he added, you’re a bore! One take ago it was: Get back into it and let me love you, and before that, simply: What is wrong with you, Miss Wong?
The scene was a simple one.
Mrs. Haggerty entered the train cabin Hui Fei and Shanghai Lily were in, where they lounged in capricious postures, trading sententious remarks. But next to Marlene’s languid Shanghai Lily, Anna May was limpid and unfocused, and she had been flubbing her lines.
In all her years of acting, Anna May had never before been chastised by a director. She watched nervously as Jo relit his pipe.
Turn your shoulders away from me and straighten out, he said to her, and if for some reason you can’t stand to look at Marlene, then just count to six and gaze at that lamp as if you could no longer live without it!
Marlene was already back in position.
Before they went for the new take, when everyone was busy with a speck of dust to be cleaned off the camera lens, and a touchup for Mrs. Haggerty’s streaky foundation, Anna May turned to Marlene, breaking character to ask: What did you tell Jo?
I told him nothing, Marlene said.
Don’t you understand, Anna May said. I can’t afford to have your reputation.
Marlene leaned so close to her ear Anna May could feel her breathing. Anna, she whispered, what is my reputation? Surreptitiously she kissed her earlobe as she asked: Why haven’t you learned to live a little? At first, all Anna May could think of was whether anyone had seen what Marlene did, but then she saw that no one was watching. Everyone was busy, and she began to relax. She looked Marlene straight in the eye, and Marlene stared back at her. Very slowly Marlene started smiling, and Anna May deliberately mirrored the movement of her scene partner’s mouth, as they held an even gaze like a straight line penciled out between them.
Now they were ready to begin.
* * *
—
ON “ACTION,” MRS. Haggerty slides open the train cabin’s doors.
Shanghai Lily checks her appearance in the m
irror while Hui Fei plays solitaire. They turn to regard each other coolly as the dowdy Mrs. Haggerty introduces herself, yammering on about her dog and the boardinghouse she owns in Shanghai, which houses only “respectable people.” Shanghai Lily asks if Mrs. Haggerty doesn’t perhaps find respectable people terribly dull.
Rattled, Mrs. Haggerty turns to Hui Fei for moral support.
I must confess, Hui Fei says with delectable disdain as she smokes and reads the calling card Mrs. Haggerty has passed to her. I don’t quite know the standard of respectability that you demand in your boardinghouse, Mrs. Haggerty. Hui Fei returns the calling card to the scandalized woman, insouciant and unhurried.
Cut, Jo said crisply, that was perfect, Miss Wong. I don’t know what you were waiting for before this, perhaps you thrill to performing under pressure?
* * *
—
FOR A WHOLE week Anna May glowed.
Relaxed and light-headed, she could feel that she was opening up not only her own performance, but also Marlene’s. What’s more, there was nothing to it. She just had to look at Marlene and remember to breathe. Every scene between them was dispensed with ease in two or at most three takes, and the whole crew was abuzz with talk of their chemistry. Jo was not one to condescend to praise, but it was plain to see he was pleased with his two actresses. He’d turned a harsh eye on Clive Brook, who was playing Captain Doc Harvey, Shanghai Lily’s love interest, after coming off back-to-back box-office successes as Sherlock Holmes. Look at the women, next to them you’re a cement mixer! Do you want me to slap you, so you can at least have an expression on your face?
Between takes Anna May retired to Marlene’s dressing room, much larger and more luxurious than her own, listening to records with the door left open, not rehearsing their scenes, just talking and touching in the manner of new acquaintances, formal, demurring, solicitous, avid, as a runner brought them iced coffee with striped straws, in each hand a cigarette they forgot to smoke. When Anna May was not in a scene, she stood behind Jo, where a spare stool would be brought to her. She’d noticed that Marlene had her own lawn chair with her name embroidered in cursive across the back, and thought of paying for one out of her own pocket on the side, but did any of these status tokens really matter, when she could not help but look on and smile as she heard Marlene’s bossy voice ring out: Thin those false lashes down by half, I do not want to look like Garbo!
The crew adored Marlene, and Anna May saw why: Which other diva, upon hearing a crew member sneeze or sniffle, would task herself to locate the person with the flu, and no matter who it was, third dolly grip or props builder’s assistant, present to them the next day a container of Dietrich’s home-brewed chicken soup?
Anna May even made her own modest contributions to Marlene’s publicity machine.
They were watching Jo’s gaffer adjust his signature butterfly lighting, arranged so that it almost formed a glowing nimbus around her forehead, cheekbones, and hair, when Anna May commented that Marlene was lit so beautifully she looked like she’d been dusted in gold foil. Overhearing this remark, Marlene’s manager exclaimed it would be tip-top fodder for the rumor mill, and spun it like so, as printed in the papers: “Every morning before going on set, the actress Marlene Dietrich has a $50 nub of solid gold ground into dust, and sprinkled on her hair.”
It was the prettiest lie. Marlene loved it.
So did Anna May, who would have been more than happy to spend her unoccupied moments thinking up gold-tinted press gossip for her costar. She wasn’t the only one. Returning from lunch once, the Shanghai Express cast passed the adjacent lot where another Paramount production was shooting with Tallulah Bankhead. Tallulah spread her legs. She’d painted the insides of her thighs gold and was calling out saucily: Guess who I had for lunch today?
Come on, Marlene retorted. You wish!
* * *
—
IN THE SCENE Anna May likes best in Shanghai Express, Shanghai Lily wears a coat with a silver fox collar. When Shanghai Lily looks at Hui Fei in the corridor, her chin tucks sumptuously into its fullness.
Hui Fei’s hair is loose. From nowhere she unsheathes a knife.
It is small, but very sharp.
Seeing Hui Fei draw the knife, Shanghai Lily strides through the cabin and holds her companion in an embrace from behind. Shanghai Lily does not know that the Communist warlord Chang (played to the hilt by Hollywood’s favorite Chinaman, Warner Oland) has just raped Hui Fei, and Hui Fei says nothing to her either. There are no tears in her eyes. Her mouth is set in a very thin line. Shanghai Lily takes Hui Fei’s wrists in her hands. Hui Fei turns to her slightly. The blade of the knife glints. Shanghai Lily’s eyes beseech as she rests her chin on Hui Fei’s shoulder and says softly: Don’t do anything foolish. Shrugging Shanghai Lily off, Hui Fei considers the point of the blade. Her nipples are visible under her cheongsam, tight silk catching the light, she’s not wearing a bra. Without a word she moves down the corridor, leaving Shanghai Lily trembling alone in her furs, as the train rumbles on.
With just the knife, Hui Fei takes on Chang and murders him by her own hand. Then she goes up to Captain Doc Harvey.
You better get her out of there, Hui Fei says, I just killed Chang.
Have you got a gun? Doc mutters, but Hui Fei has already walked away.
* * *
—
THEY WERE REVIEWING the rushes for this scene when Jo remarked: Forget Doc, now it seems as if Shanghai Lily and Hui Fei are lovers!
Anna May started to flush a deep red as she tried to push the color away from her neck, her cheeks, but everyone else was laughing.
Marlene caught her eye.
Very nice, Jo went on, and nothing overt about it either, we won’t have to worry about the censor’s scissors. Those self-ordained Hays Code despots are too stupid for anything that isn’t cussing and fornicating right before their eyes.
In public there was the expediency that it was all part of the irresistible shuck and jive of being two beautiful women in a room together in front of other people, but when their costumes were hung up onto racks, Anna May felt herself recede, wishing they could still be filming. Could Marlene really want nothing from her in real life? Yes, there was Jo, and there was the husband, but might there not be something she could give Marlene, that she alone was good for? It made her feel sick to think this way whenever Marlene was near, and she began to make up excuses to be alone. Her lines remained perfect and her performance impeccable, but she no longer visited Marlene in her dressing room or hung behind to watch her do a take, chatting with the crew. It would be best to finish the movie and forget about Marlene. See her every now and then on someone else’s arm at a Paramount party and exchange a few pleasantries, that was how it would be. Soon Anna May took to leaving Paramount right after her last scene of the day, before they’d even cleaned off her makeup, hiding out in the hotel. In the bath on the night before the last shoot day, the concierge buzzed Anna May for a flower delivery. A vase of lilies was sent up. The accompanying card, unsigned, read: Call me. Five minutes later, another call from the concierge. More lilies, the same note. For the rest of the hour this repeated itself. First it was charming, then outrageous—who sends over a roomful of the sender’s favorite flower, rather than the recipient’s?
There was no more tabletop space.
She looked around at all the lilies.
What Anna May liked about Marlene, right from the start, was that she seemed to be that rare woman who truly did not care what anyone else thought. People would talk? Let them sing and shout! Before she met Marlene, Anna May never imagined a woman could have such a life. Marlene’s sense of self never flickered—playing bit parts back then; having made the big time now—she remained the same person. She knew who she was, and reveled in that knowledge, and so appeared effortlessly Marlene at all times. Now half of Hollywood had the hots for her, but Anna May though
t, with some measure of pride, that in fact they did not know what it was they liked about her. They only wanted to be part of the glamour the studios had built up around her image, but they did not know that behind the shiny publicity was a real woman you could fall for.
If Marlene wanted her, too, why should she be so afraid of what others would think?
Anna May was so tired of living a lie for everyone else’s benefit. As early on as she could remember, the most important lesson she’d taught herself was to keep anything she wanted a secret. Too many times, she’d found out the hard way that what she wanted was wrong. Now she was older and knew better, but it was too late. How she saw herself, first and foremost, had been set in stone by others: she was an indecent person who was bound to give her family a bad name. She knew this was neither fair nor true, but what you knew was more often than not separate from what you felt. Already her parents had wanted to disown her for being an actress; what would happen if she went with Marlene on top of that, too? They would have died of shame if it became public knowledge, and the Chinese press would certainly be tripping over themselves to ensure the scoop was spread far and wide. They’d called her a degenerate for acting with a white man; they would have run out of names for her if they found out about this.
Delayed Rays of a Star Page 18