Picture Show Annual 1959

This beauty is from my vintage film annual collection. I have quite a few as I used to buy them for pocket money when I was a teen (and infatuated with Clark Gable and the glamour of old Hollywood). I was flicking through this British film annual recently and although I have always loved the cover I didn't realise it had some hidden gems inside. The cover features Dirk Bogarde and Yoko Tani from their film The Wind Cannot Read. There is more on Japanese actress Yoko Tani inside in a feature rather snootily titled:

Here are some of the pages from the article that feature East Asian film stars:

The page below shows Chinese film star Li Lihua (credited as Lili Hua here) on the set of Hollywood movie China Doll with director Frank Borzage and co-star Victor Mature (also a teenage crush of mine!).

And an Italian film star going 'yellowface' for The Quiet American. This was common practice in Hollywood films - using a non US star to play many different races (e.g. Yul Bryner's career), just adding extra eyeliner! This has been well documented in the excellent film Hollywood Chinese which also looks at Chinese Americans in the movie industry.


The Picture Show Annual has another article titled New Faces in Films which does feature some East Asian American actresses:

Marie Tsien is at the top of the page in a strange ruffle shirt and floral shorts combo: "Hailing from Hong Kong Marie Tsien went to the United States to study interior decoration in San Francisco. Modelling jobs, however, eventually led to television. One of her film roles has been in 'The 27th Days'
Amercian born Miiko Taka is pictured to the right: Taka has her first engagement as an actress playing opposite Marlon Brando in 'Sayonara'. Black-haired brown eyed Miiko is 5 feet 6 inches tall.
Bottom left is France Nyuen who played Liat in South Pacific.

Well that's all folks. I hope you enjoyed my scanning efforts.