I'm quite remiss in not pointing this out sooner — since I first discovered it about a month ago — but better late than never. Launched in January this year, Antique Shanghai Pop Music is a wonderful new podcast devoted to the golden age of Mandarin pop, hosted with ardor and wit by the charming Ling. Whether you are a total stranger to these classic songs, an already avid but linguistically impaired fan, or a native-speaking aficionado, you will find Ling a most endearing and knowledgeable guide.
So far he has created five installments, starting with an overview of Shanghai-era shi dai qu (literally, "songs of the times") followed by episodes devoted to pairs of individual singers, such as Zhou Xuan & Yao Li and Li Xianglan & Bai Guang. Ling hopes to complete a dozen installments, after which he plans to enhance the contents of his site with singer and composer profiles and English lyrics for all of the songs featured in his podcasts.
This last feature, which he's already started, is a godsend for folks like me who love shi dai qu but haven't yet attempted the daunting task of learning Mandarin. Thanks to Ling's show I'm finally able to understand the words of some of my favorite songs. And let me tell you, it's like falling in love all over again.
So please check out Antique Shanghai Pop Music. It earns my highest recommendation. You can download the shows directly from Ling's site, as well as Apple's iTunes Store.
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Here are a few pics that didn't make it into my previous post about Maylia, the striking beauty that Columbia Pictures was hoping to turn into the next Anna May Wong. The first two photos are publicity shots for her grand debut, To the Ends of the Earth (1948), and the last is from the April 1948 issue of Esquire.
"Hollywood's first Chinese starlet since Anna May Wong"
No, Maylia was not the "first Chinese starlet since Anna May Wong", as claimed by Columbia Pictures, but she did join the ranks of earlier Chinese American actresses misused and undervalued by Hollywood: such as Lotus Liu, who was twice promised the featured role in The Good Earth (1937) that eventually went to Austrian dancer Tilly Losch; charming Iris Wong, who provided a bouquet of freshness to Charlie Chan in Reno (1939) and Charlie Chan in Rio (1941) before disappearing into the thin air of uncredited bit parts; and Marianne Quon, who, after showing great promise in China (1943) and Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944), moved to Hong Kong, where she became one of the colony's top stars.
Hailing from Detroit, Michigan, Maylia — real name: Gloria Chin — was just a 20-year-old coed vacationing in Hollywood when she was spotted in a restaurant by the wife of writer-producer Sidney Buchman. She was asked to audition for a role in Buchman's big-budget project, To the Ends of the Earth, and voilà! — a star was born. Of course, she would need to change her name to something more befitting the "first Chinese starlet since Anna May Wong", something a little more exotic. According to the studio publicity, "Maylia is her name, and in Cantonese it means beautiful" (The Huntingdon Daily News, March 3, 1947).* Around the same time, Gloria underwent another name change. Within days of signing her contract with Columbia Pictures, she had a fateful meeting with actor Benson Fong (best known at the time as Charlie Chan's "number three son"). It must have been love at first sight, because the two got hitched a few weeks later.
Although shooting for To the Ends of the Earth was completed in early 1947, the film wasn't released until the following year. In the meantime, Maylia played a small part in Universal's Singapore (1947), as Ava Gardner's servant. Unbeknownst to the public, she was also in "preproduction" for a role that would soon take her away from acting. Before her film debut even hit the screens that August, the "first Chinese starlet since Anna May Wong" was already pregnant with her first child and due for delivery in January of 1948 (which could have been why Columbia decided to delay the release of To the Ends of the Earth).
Maylia in Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture
Motherhood definitely threw a wrench in Columbia's plans for the "first Chinese starlet since Anna May Wong", and Maylia quietly rode out her contract with a couple of B-list Chinatown mysteries: Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture (1949) and Chinatown at Midnight (1949). In 1950, Maylia gave birth to her second child, which effectively marked the end of her brief film career (although she evidently made two uncredited appearances in the early 50s).
Luckily for us, we can at least glimpse the star that Maylia might have been in the following clip from To the Ends of the Earth. Let me set up the scene for you: Dick Powell plays an agent from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics who's been engaged in a round-the-world manhunt for the mysterious "Jean Hawks", leader of a global drug ring using opium as a "weapon to keep the world divided and its citizens slaves"; Swedish actress Signe Hasso plays an American philanthropist whom we are led to believe might actually be the nefarious "Jean Hawks"; and Maylia plays the Chinese war orphan who is unknowingly being used by "Jean Hawks" as part of her cover.
Talk about a twist! Who'd have thought that the leader of a global drug ring funding the Japanese war machine is a 19-year-old Chinese girl. I'm alternately wowed and appalled by the proposition. On the one hand, it makes for a pretty cool villain role, which Maylia clearly relished. On the other, such a blatant resurrection of "The Daughter of Fu Manchu" in a movie purporting to be "based on actual incidents from the files of the United States Department of Treasury" is, frankly, quite demented. But hey, that's Hollywood for you.
I must say that I found Dick Powell and his righteous speechifying quite annoying. In my fantasy version of the film, the pistol is loaded with real bullets instead of blanks, and Maylia has the last line. "Don't call me princess, gweilo."
* BTW, "beautiful" in Cantonese is more accurately rendered in English as "mei lai".
Excuse me for gushing over my new favorita, Miss Li Bingbing, who has knocked me over with a one-two punch of recent photo shoots. The picture above comes from a candid series taken at the Piazza San Marco in Venice, where she's been attending the International Film Festival in support of her new movie Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (directed by the once — and hopefully still — visionary Tsui Hark).
At the opposite end of the fashion spectrum are these two stunning photos from a spread in the forthcoming October issue of Harper's Bazaar China. I'm so wowed by them that I'm compelled to break my self-imposed exile in the glamor of yesteryear and celebrate Miss Li's contemporary, yet classic, allure.
* Thanks to fellow fans dleedlee and ewaffle for setting the bait!
I wish I could tell you more about Chinese American singer Beatrice Fung Oye, but I've only found a few scraps of information, mostly from Billboard and some of the New York gossip columns of the day.
I can't confirm when she started to sing professionally, but by June of 1942 Beatrice was performing at Louise's Monte Carlo in New York City. "Fung Oye, Chinese, is a cute, young thing who sings pops in a pleasant enough voice and with vivacity. In her 15th week here, her popularity continues to grow" (Billboard, October 3). Billboard listings indicate that she stayed on at the Monte Carlo through the rest of '42.
The following year she performed for a few months at the Ubangi — where she was "the first non-Negro" to sing at the club (Billboard, February 20) — before moving on to Leon & Eddie's in May. Beatrice was still playing at Leon & Eddie's a year later, although I've found no proof whether she sang there exclusively.
During this time her name popped up occasionally in the New York gossip columns, which were syndicated in newspapers across the country. Walter Winchell mentioned her as "the cute little Chinese girl soliciting funds for China Relief at 57th and 5th" (October 31, 1942), and according to Dorothy Kilgallen, the "chanteuse at Leon & Eddie's is mad about Mexican chili con carne — and what's more, she eats it with chopsticks!" (May 5, 1943).
In 1945 Beatrice got a big break when she was selected as one of the winners of ABC's On Stage Everybody talent contest (The Abilene Reporter-News, April 7). The prize was a role in the Universal musical based on ABC's popular radio show. Here's a photo of her with five of the ten winners. The movie opened in July, and that fall Beatrice toured the country with a vaudeville unit composed of performers from the cast.
Newspaper ad from The Salt Lake Tribune (October 21, 1945)
After her brush with national fame, Beatrice returned to New York City and sang at the China Doll, the East Coast equivalent of San Francisco's Forbidden City. She was evidently still newsworthy enough to appear on the Broadway gossip radar. Columnist Danton Walker revealed this amusing bit of trivia: "When Beatrice Fung Oye, the Brooklyn-born Chinese prima donna, goes to Dodgers games she yells at the umpire in Chinese" (December 1, 1947).
Newspaper ad from The New York Times (April 15, 1947)
In 1951–52, she hit the road with Tom Ball's China Doll Revue, performing alongside "Chop Suey" veterans Ming & Ling and Florence Hin Lowe. And that's the last trace of Beatrice I can find.
Luckily, I was able to track down a copy of On Stage Everybody, so let's end this post with a rare glimpse of Brooklyn swing diva Beatrice Fung Oye!
I am taking this moment to apologize for being an insufferable know-it-all. Ever since I wrote that post about how I am always on time to school I have (without a doubt) been late to every school related endeavor since (which is roughly four trips to school in total). I am sorry, Cosmos, for thinking I knew what I was talking about, I rarely do.
In other news.
There was a curious happening last night as I was driving my car. I was coming home from Starbucks around 10:45 PM after sipping on a delicious pumpkin spice latte (welcome back dear friend); music blasting, windows down blowing my hair all over the place, you know in the usual way...
The night was calm all around and densely dark--moving so fast in contrast to such stillness made me feel agitated. Then I saw two small lights on the side of the road. Strange. I swerved as to not hit whatever it was and as I passed it, my lights revealed a tiny, little tabby kitten, just standing there, staring. I kept driving, but something within me wouldn't sit well if I went home as planned leaving the kitten on the side of a relatively busy road. Sigh. So I flipped around to try and save kitty, put on my hazards and ran across the street to where it was.
So there I stood, for minutes that felt like hours, staring at this small, scared thing. Cars rushed past us while our eyes remained locked. I couldn't move for a long time and I am not sure why. It was like I had sleep paralyses--arms, legs, body were stuck for good. Then kitten bolted and ran into the middle of the street, a car narrowly missed it and it took off in the dark night.
