Soo Yong

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Soo Yong , actually Ah Hee Young (born October 31, 1903 in Wailuku , Maui , Hawaii , † October 1984 ) was a Chinese-American actress. Like many other actresses of Asian origin, Soo Yong was denied a career as a leading lady despite her talent because interesting Asian roles were mostly filled with white actors in her time.

Life and movies

After studying at the Mid-Pacific Institute in Honolulu and at the University of Hawaii, Soo Yong, who actually wanted to become a teacher and had started her doctoral studies at the University of Southern California , got an engagement with MGM in 1934 , in which she played a supporting role the film " The Colorful Veil " made its debut. The main characters in this married film based on a novel by William Somerset Maugham were Greta Garbo and Herbert Marshall . In 1935 the love and pirate film "Adventure in the Yellow Sea" followed, in which Soo Yong appeared in a tiny role alongside Clark Gable and Jean Harlow . In 1936, she appeared in the Paramount film "Klondike Annie" as the maid of a singer ( Mae West ) who stirs up a village in Alaska with her sex.

The artistically most ambitious film in which Soo Yong took part was " The Good Earth " (1937), a film based on the novel by Pearl S. Buck , which was one of the first Hollywood productions to focus on a sensitive, non-stereotyped film Chinese image endeavored. Soo Yong played in this film, which played among Chinese farmers, whose leading roles were unfortunately cast by white actors, the cruel old, pipe-smoking head of the rich family, whose slave was the main female character, O-Lan, at first. Soo Yong first played a bigger role in the adventure film "Secret of the Wastelands" (1941), a film by Harry Sherman Productions Inc., a production company specializing in westerns , whose most important product was the strip "Santa Fe Marshal" (1940) . In addition to William Boyd , Soo Yong played the leader of a group of Chinese settlers whose existence is threatened by a greedy mine owner. In 1943 she appeared in two war films ("China" and "Night Plane from Chungking"), each of which was set in China occupied by the Japanese army.

After the end of the Second World War , Soo Yong worked for various production companies. She played larger roles in the action film "Treffpunkt Hongkong" (1953) and in the crime film "Escape to Hong Kong" (1956). In the Liebesschnulze "All glory on earth" she only appeared in a supporting role, while the main role of the half-Chinese Dr. Han Suyin was cast with the white actress Jennifer Jones .

Soo Young had been married to the Chinese-American businessman Chun Ku Huang since 1941, with whom she initially lived alternately in Maine and Florida and in Hawaii from the early 1960s. Soo Young appeared only sporadically in films since the 1960s and concentrated on her writing and theater work. In 1973, the couple set up the Chun Ku and Soo Yong Huang Foundation , a foundation to promote Chinese culture in the USA.

Filmography

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Yong, Soo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ah hee young
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese-American film actress
DATE OF BIRTH October 31, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Wailuku , Maui, Hawaii
DATE OF DEATH October 1984