"Technicolor Movie Queen" Lai Yee in Beauty Trap (1954)
—from Silver Light: A Pictorial History of Hong Kong Cinema
Born and raised in San Francisco, Lai Yee (also known as Marianne Quon) was married to Chinese movie pioneer Joseph Sunn Jue (Chiu Shu-sun). Jue had produced — in San Francisco — one of the first Cantonese talkies, Romance of the Songsters (1933), which starred visiting opera performer Kwan Tak-hing in his first appearance on the silver screen. Kwan, of course, would become famous for his role as the legendary Wong Fei Hung during the 1950s and 60s in more than 80 films. Also featured in Romance of the Songsters was a nine-year-old Lai Yee, who had performed opera with Kwan during his tenure in San Francisco.
Sometime around 1946, Lai Yee, now in her early 20s, was again working with Jue. After the success of Romance of the Songsters, Jue had become one of the biggest producers of Cantonese films in Hong Kong during the mid to late 1930s. The Japanese invasion in December, 1941 put a halt to his operations there, and he returned to San Francisco, where he continued making movies catering to Chinese American audiences. Always the innovator, Jue started shooting in color on 16mm film, and it was in these movies that Lai Yee got her start as a "color beauty".
After Lai Yee and Joseph Sunn Jue got married, they moved to Hong Kong and became active in the film industry there. Besides working for other production companies, Lai Yee formed her own company, the Li'er Colour Film Company, which specialized in the production of color films. The films included a series of historical epics based on the classic novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms — Three Kingdoms (1951), The Story of Diu Sim (1953) and Beauty Trap (1954) — as well as two vehicles for Helen Li Mei — Return of the Pearl (1954) and Song of the Nightingale (1954). By the end of the decade, Lai Yee had starred in more color films than any other actress and could justifiably be called the "Technicolor Movie Queen" of Chinese cinema.
But before Lai Yee became a star in Hong Kong, she attempted a career in Hollywood. Billed under her English name Marianne Quon, Lai Yee debuted in the Paramount production China (1943), which starred Loretta Young as an American school teacher trying to evacuate her Chinese students from the invading Japanese. Lai played one of the students and seems to have made — if not a big splash — at least a favorable enough impression in Tinseltown, judging by the following gossip-column mentions.
Loretta Young, who remembers her own early struggles in Hollywood, has a habit of "adopting" ambitious movie beginners whom she meets in her films. The star's latest protege is a shy 18-year-old Chinese girl, Marianne Quon, who makes her debut in "China". Loretta encouraged her to forget her self-consciousness and gave her pointers on how to act easily and naturally. When a casting switch left open one of the principal feminine Chinese roles, Loretta asked Director John Farrow to give her friend a tryout. Thanks to Loretta's coaching, Marianne got the role.
—Erskine Johnson's syndicated column, December 6, 1942
Wowie — but Marianne Quon is a beauty! The prettiest Chinese girl these eyes have ever beheld. She is on the M-G-M lot playing Keye Luke's sweetheart in "Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case". Marianne comes from San Francisco, where her father, Quon Kee, is a cafe owner and she herself has been studying marine drafting. When Paramount was in search of Chinese talent someone saw Marianne and she was brought to Hollywood. She was given a bit. But she photographs so well that M-G-M promptly signed her.
—Louella Parson's syndicated column, January 14, 1943
Her next film after Dr. Gillespie's Criminal Case was Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944), where she had a supporting role as the famous detective's daughter. M-G-M obviously had little use for a Chinese actress, because Lai Yee didn't work again until 1946, when she had an uncredited role in Twentieth Century Fox's Anna and the King of Siam (1946) as one of the king's wives. Such was the lot at that time for a Chinese American actress in Hollywood.
Lai Yee clearly had what it takes to become a star, but she had to move to Hong Kong to do it. Fortunately, a few of the Chinese American films she made after ditching Hollywood survive in the Hong Kong Film Archive, however it is unlikely that they will ever be seen outside of the Archive's resource center. At least we can get a glimpse of Lai's American side from her appearance in Charlie Chan in the Secret Service.
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