The Cheat (1915)

Movie

A venal, spoiled stockbroker's wife impulsively embezzles $10,000 from the charity she chairs and desperately turns to a Burmese ivory trader to replace the stolen money.  Director: Cecil B. DeMille  Writer: Hector Turnbull, Jeanie Macpherson  Stars: Fannie Ward, Sessue Hayakawa, Jack Dean

Transcript

00:00In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month,

00:03we're celebrating a trio of actors

00:04who fearlessly blaze trails in old Hollywood.

00:07If you work hard, you will be treated well.

00:12On this IMD Brief, we present just a few

00:14of the unsung Asian American Pacific Islander heroes

00:18of film history.

00:22Regardless of back-to-back Best Director

00:24and Best Picture Oscar wins for Asian filmmakers

00:27Bong Joon-ho and Chloe Zhao,

00:29Hollywood's representation for people of Asian descent

00:32has been fraught with problematic portrayals,

00:35caricatures, and a barely skin-deep perception

00:38of their inner lives.

00:39I must confess, I don't quite know the standard

00:42of respectability that you demand in your boarding house.

00:45Our first hero, Anna Mae Wong,

00:47was one of the very first Asian American actresses

00:50to ascend to stardom.

00:52Born in LA's Chinatown to second-generation

00:55Chinese American parents,

00:56Wong was taken by the glitz and glamour

00:58of Hollywood's silent era, and found extra work as a teen.

01:02She garnered notoriety after appearing

01:04with Douglas Fairbanks in the smash hit Swashbuckler,

01:07The Thief of Baghdad, in 1924.

01:09But this led to more stereotyped, seductress roles

01:12of the exotic dragon lady, a part she did not want to play

01:16in an industry that gave her no other options.

01:26Wong fought to play real people, but racial segregation prevented

01:31Wong from sharing an on-screen kiss with a white actor.

01:34After a decade of disappointment, she campaigned to play Olan,

01:38the lead of a big-screen adaptation of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, in 1937.

01:44But MGM offered her the deceitful concubine role instead,

01:48to which she told legendary producer Irving Thalberg,

01:51You're asking me, with Chinese blood,

01:54to do the only unsympathetic role in the picture featuring an all-American cast

01:59portraying Chinese characters.

02:01German actress Louise Reiner took the role of Olan instead,

02:04and won an Oscar for her performance.

02:06You must sell!

02:08Is it your land?

02:09And did you buy it bit by bit?

02:12In 1951, Wong blazed a new trail in television,

02:16becoming the first Asian-American star of a primetime series,

02:20on the gallery of Madame Lu Song, a role written just for her.

02:24But the show was canceled after one season,

02:27and all copies have been lost to time.

02:29One year before her untimely death in 1961,

02:32she became the first Asian-American actress

02:35to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, right near the intersection

02:39of Hollywood and Vine.

02:40In this wine, we pledge our troughs.

02:44He pledged his love.

02:46Our next unsung hero, Sessu Hayakawa,

02:49was one of the first Asian leading men,

02:52an early Hollywood heartthrob who was a contemporary of Anna May

02:56Wong, even portraying her romantic counterpart in 1931's

03:00Daughter of the Dragon.

03:01Born in Japan, Hayakawa was discovered by D.W. Griffith's

03:04producing partner Thomas H. Ince.

03:07This led to early roles in silent films like The Typhoon,

03:10The Wrath of the Gods, and 1915's The Chief.

03:18Hayakawa parlayed stardom into launching Haworth Pictures

03:22Corporation and producing 23 films in just a few years.

03:26But his success was short-lived, and he left Hollywood for Europe,

03:30stating that his early roles are false and give people

03:33a wrong idea of us.

03:35I wish to make a characterization which shall reveal us

03:38as we really are.

03:40My one ambition is to play a hero.

03:43Hayakawa may have never gotten that chance

03:45on the grand stage of Hollywood, but late in his career,

03:48he did play the honorable villain Colonel Saito in 1957's

03:53The Bridge on the River Kwai, a performance that earned him

03:55a much-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination.

03:59It's against the rules.

04:00Do not speak to me of rules.

04:02This is war.

04:04Our final unsung hero, Merle Oberon, was the first Asian person

04:08to be nominated for any Academy Award, but she had to hide her

04:12heritage to find fortune and fame.

04:14Oberon was born in India in 1911 to a British father and a mother

04:18of Sri Lankan and Maori ancestry, but created the cover story

04:22that she was born in Tasmania, and all records were destroyed

04:26in a fire.

04:27She broke out in a small but memorable role as Anne Boleyn

04:30in 1933's The Private Life of Henry VIII.

04:34Among the queens of England, actually, Anne Sautet.

04:39That means Anne who lost her head.

04:42After the film was a sensation, Oberon became a leading lady in the

04:46Scarlet Pimpernel, Wuthering Heights opposite Laurence Olivier,

04:50and 1935's World War I drama with Frederick March, The Dark Angel.

04:55She received that Best Actress nomination for The Dark Angel,

04:58the only actress of Asian descent ever in the category.

05:01However, this milestone wasn't discovered until after her death

05:04in 1979, when the truth about her genealogy

05:07was ultimately revealed.

05:09Hey, wait a minute.

05:11No, goodbye.

05:12For more videos and interviews to celebrate Asian Pacific

05:15American Heritage Month, check out our special section

05:18at imdb.com slash imdbpicks.

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