Notes (+ Question) about Chinese actresses in SOF
First, the question: where is Barbara Jean Wong in this film? She's credited as "Haka Girl," but I don't know what that is and I didn't see any scene with any actress who looked like her. IMDB credits both her and "Jean Wong" as "Haka Girl," but I'm guessing they are one and the same since Barbara Jean Wong sometimes went by the name Jean Wong. Does anyone know where Barbara Jean Wong is in SOLDIER OF FORTUNE? She has a fascinating history and was a radio performer as a child and was known as the “Chinese Shirley Temple.” I’ve previously seen her in the Alan Ladd film, CHINA (1943).
I’ve never noticed Frances Fong before. She’s very pretty and is quite good in SOF as a shop owner named Maxine Chan who speaks excellent English and attributes that, in the film, to having studied in California and been a cheerleader at UCLA. (Were there any Chinese cheerleaders at UCLA in the 1940s or '50s?) Fong is Chinese-American and when she’s called upon to speak Cantonese, it sounds like she’s speaking it phonetically. She has quite a few TV credits that I'd like to seek out.
Noel Toy plays Luan, the mistress of Macao sleazebag Fernand Rocha (Mel Welles). She has one of the few Chinese female speaking parts in the film and is one of only two with multiple scenes. (The other is Soo Yong.) Ms. Toy has a fascinating history and was a notorious fan dancer at the famed Forbidden City nightclub in San Francisco’s Chinatown. She married a white serviceman named Carleton Young who was also an actor and is probably most famous for being one of John Ford’s stock company. He played the newspaper editor in THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE who delivers the famous line, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” The two were married until Young’s death in 1994.
Grace Chang was a major star in Hong Kong films in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. Here she plays the prostitute questioned by Michael Rennie on her boat in an early scene. I was puzzled because it didn’t quite look like the Grace Chang I know and love from musical films like MAMBO GIRL and THE WILD WILD ROSE. But then when I checked the Photo Gallery, featured as an extra on the SOF DVD, there were b&w still shots of Ms. Chang on the set and it is indeed the star of MAMBO GIRL. Amazing how she photographs so differently in a Hollywood film than she does in a Hong Kong film. She was a huge star at Cathay Studios, the rival of Shaw Bros.
I know very little about Soo Yong, who plays the old priestess here who helps Gable. (What religion was the priestess? I didn’t hear any reference that would have identified her religion. Buddhism?) Soo Yong’s credits go back to the 1930s and films like CHINA SEAS and THE GOOD EARTH. She’s also in the aforementioned CHINA. Her last credit is “Magnum P.I.”
On the male side, I was surprised to see Victor Sen Yung looking so different than usual. He plays the waiter in the hotel dining area. Did they give him new teeth for the scene? He just doesn't look like himself.