Nancy Kwan 5/6 | The Most Inspiring Asian Americans of All Time | Asian American Personalities

Asian American Profiles

SUZIE WONG REVISITED

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     In addition to dancing four hours a day Kwan had to study a variety of related arts like stage makeup and complete her normal high school subjects. She was a "pretty good" dancer and intended either to become a member of the Royal Ballet or open a ballet studio in Hong Kong. Acting was something she had never considered. It was just something she "fell into", in part through her involvement in Royal Ballet productions. Her first part was a "spear carrier" in Aida.

     Kwan couldn't have been too home sick because one by one all her younger siblings came to England and her older brother was studying architecture at the Academy of Architecture in London. "My poor daddy," says Kwan of the expense of sending seven children to exclusive English schools. During a couple of school holidays Kwan went home but for the most part she recalls going to the continent and hopping a train for a tour of France, Italy and Switzerland, among other countries.

     After finishing school at the Royal Ballet, Kwan returned to Hong Kong for her 18th summer. Ray Stark, producer of the successful Suzie Wong stage play, was in Hong Kong looking for actresses for the film version. Kwan went for a screen test with a number of Hong Kong's top actresses. Two months later her father got a letter from Stark saying that his daughter photographed well and had great potential. "They didn't know about my acting because I had never acted, but they offered to start me at $300 a week on a seven-year-contract," says Kwan. "It was a lot of money to me then." Excited by the prospect of adventure and the potential for stardom, Kwan pestered her father to let her go. Having business interests in Hong Kong, Bill Holden was already acquainted with Kwan's father and urged him to let her go.

     "Go, if you want to go, just pick up and go," her harried father told her. He had been somewhat reassured by the fact that she would be living in a studio dormitory for young actresses. "It was a great place for young girls coming from abroad," says Kwan. "It was run by a lovely lady. Men weren't allowed in." Kwan still has friends from then, some of whom became actresses and some who didn't. "It's much easier to make friends when you're young."

     Kwan went to acting school in Hollywood before going to New York for a second screen test. When the Broadway production went on the road she was offered the chance to join the show in the role of one of the bar girls and to understudy Suzie Wong. France Nuyen was already in England shooting the interior shots for the film version. "I went to cities I would never have gone to on my own like Pittsburg," says Kwan of the two months spent touring.

     While they were playing in Toronto she got a call from Ray Stark who ordered her immediately to England. "He told me there was some trouble and I had to take another screen test in London for the Suzie Wong part," recalls Kwan. By that time Nuyen was already in Hong Kong shooting location scenes. Suzie Wong was one of Hollywood's first big-scale "runaway" productions in which filming was moved out of the studio backlot for the sake of production values. "It's just not working out," Stark said when asked about Nuyen.

     In England Kwan learned that France Nuyen and the famous director had been taken off the film. "I don't reallly know why," she says. "It was Ray Stark's first film and he thought it was important it turn out the way he thought it should look." Filming began all over again in England with a new director and Kwan as Suzie Wong.

     "It was so boring," she recalls, making a face at the memory of the interminable waits between shots. "We were there [in London] for almost three months. Now you do a picture in eight weeks. They used to shoot for four months, six months. After the interiors we went to Hong Kong and did all the exteriors again."

     That was about nine months after she had been discovered and Kwan had just turned 19. "I was a girl playing a woman from a world I knew nothing about," says Kwan. "If it wasn't for William Holden and the director I don't think it would have come off," she adds modestly. Kwan did some first-hand research by talking to prostitutes in Hong Kong's Wanchai district where the film is set. "You ask them all these questions and they think you're sick," she says, laughing. As for her parents, "I don't think they knew what to think." She adds, "It's not like today's passionate love scenes where you're naked. Not in those days. I don't think I would have gone for that. They wanted an innocent girl, not a down home, earthy prostitute. She was like a fairy."

     Kwan laughs off any suggestion of an off-screen romance with Holden. "He had sons my age. We played ping-pong together. One was 17, a year younger than me. The other was 15."

     The big 1960 London premier was attended not only by the British royalty but also by Kwan's father. Kwan doesn't know how her father felt about her role. "I didn't dare to ask him," she says, "but the film was very popular." He traveled with her to the New York premier and onto Los Angeles for a third opening at Grauman's Chinese Theater. They went on to Hawaii for a vacation before returning to Hong Kong.

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     Thanks to Suzie Wong's huge profits Kwan received a five-figure bonus under her contract with Seven Artists. She also became an instant celebrity.

     "I'm a very private person," she prefaces. "I didn't realize [how famous I had become] until I visited Hong Kong. I was buying some fabric with my stepmother. I looked around and there were all these people standing at the doorway. I got claustrophobia. Then they kind of followed us. After that, yeah, I didn't like it, but..." She struggles with her ambivalence before brightening up and adding, "It was very good in the States because at all the Chinese restaurants I got a free meal. They would come over, bow and say it's on the house." She didn't see it as an imposition. "If I couldn't deal with it, I could go onto something else. Fame is fleeting, like anything else. People forget."

     Her fame changed the people around her more than it changed her, insists Kwan. "I know it myself and from [talking with] friends and actresses who are well known." She tells of her friends and her brother's architect friends coming over to her London hotel and being impressed by the way she charged everything to the room. "I could afford a nice new car while they were still driving jalopies. Sure, they got jealous." Her brother, whom she had always run after, found the roles reversed. "It affected him more than it affected me. He used to go off in a huff and I couldn't understand it."

     Kwan denies that she was a party girl. "When you're doing a movie, you don't have time to be a party girl. Maybe a little on the weekends..."

     After a year of traveling "all over the place" Kwan came to Los Angeles to work on Flower Drum Song, a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical produced by Universal. Kwan's second movie role was to become almost as memorable as her first. She played a femme fatale who competes with a picture bride for the leading man. Filming began in 1961 and the movie opened in 1962 to huge box office. It was the first American feature film starring an all-Asian cast. "It was terrific. I got a big bonus, $30,000 or something." By then her contractual salary had jumped to $500 or $750 a week. PAGE 6