Maylia: "Beautiful" in Cantonese

 "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".