Interview with Bai Guang

Here is an interview with Bai Guang from the October 1950 issue of Movie News. I've also scanned it and made a PDF, which you can download here.

With the hopes of getting an exclusive story for the Movie News, I went on the afternoon of Tuesday 3rd October to see Miss Bai Kwang (where she stays is top secret, so I'm not at liberty to disclose it), without first "warning" her.

My chief reason for not making an appointment is that I wanted to catch her with her "war-paint" off, so that I could see at close quarters what she really looked like—this current rave of the millions of Chinese movie fans.

But it was not to be. I missed her by a few minutes. They told me when I arrived that she had just left. How am I supposed to know that she had an appointment with her dressmaker?!

Not to be cheated out of an interview, I made an appointment this time to meet her at the cocktail lounge of Shaw's Chambers in Robinson Road.

It was the afternoon of the next day that I finally caught up with her and that interview. As it turned out, it was not an exclusive, because the Film Editor of the Singapore Standard, Mr. Oswald Henry, had also arranged to meet her on the same day, at the same time and in the same place.

Same small world!

We had her all to ourselves for a whole hour. The atmosphere was most informal—exactly as she liked it.

"I don't like crowds. I'm supposed to be used to them by now, but somehow I don't," she said with a shrug of her shoulders—as if to say that she herself can't understand why.

She spoke good English with the most intriguing Shanghai accent.

Dressed in a calf-length cheongsam of purple lambskin, a white sharkskin wrap, white shoes (no nylons), her hair upswept and a string of pearls around her neck, she looked different and definitely more attractive than she does on the screen.

Small wonder that her army of fans in Singapore failed to recognize her in her frequent visits to cinemas and around the shops.

"Once... only once, I was nearly recognized," she recalled. "He stopped and stared for a moment, hesitated and walked away mumbling to his friend, 'No, it can't be'."

What struck me most when I met her face to face for the first time was her complete lack of airs and her almost flawless complexion.

She confesses that she:

DOES NOT feel "at home" at socials, and consequently avoid them.

IS SICK and tired of the same old things day in and day out.

HAS NO place in that pretty head of hers for business.

LOST a good amount of money backing a Chinese picture in 1948.

FEELS she is wasting her time and talents by appearing in the same type of roles film after film.

PREFERS TO have a small part in a good movie rather than star in a bad one.

HATES artificiality.

LOVES going to the movies and generally lazing it.

WORKED 309 days under the arc lights last year.

CANNOT SAY which one actress she likes to see most.

WOULD LIKE to travel, learn and see things in order to gain more experience.

HAS NO "crush" on Orson Welles, and explained by saying: "He's the one person in the world I would really like to meet and talk to because he's... what do you call it... a genius. I want to know what he thinks of my ability as an actress and whether there's any worthwhile future in it for me if I were to carry on. Of course I would love to appear in a picture with him—preferably in one on the lines of "Casablanca," "Malaya," "Morocco," or the "The Lady from Shanghai" where I can have a small part in a cafe scene and sing a song or two."

From Singapore she'll be going on a personal appearance tour of the key towns in the Federation.

After that—who knows? Maybe a visit to Siam and then... Hollywood! and the realization of that dream.

Whatever it is, I'm sure my readers will join me in wishing her: "ALL THE BEST FOR ALWAYS!"