Lotus Liu: Almost a Star

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the real Chinese players who appeared alongside the yellowface leads of The Good Earth (1937) and promised that I would profile some of these forgotten actors.

First up is Lotus Liu. Her story is a little sad. She was actually chosen to play Lotus, one of the film's featured roles, but in the end lost the part to a white actress. Let's follow her promising, but ill-fated, trajectory to stardom before it finally missed its mark.

LOTUS LIU OF SHANGHAI
GETS SCREEN START
Young Unknown Only Chinese-Born Lead
in "Good Earth"

By BARBARA MILLER
— HOLLYWOOD

Shanghai, which gave the world — and Hollywood — the impudent Lyda Roberti, has produced another potential prodigy.

Her name is Lotus Liu and she will play Lotus, the Soochow sing-song girl and home-wrecker, in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's "The Good Earth". The 19-year-old unknown is the only China-born principal in a cast headed by Paul Muni (Austria) and Luise Rainer (Germany).

Unlike Roberti, product of Shanghai's famous cabaret system, Lotus comes to Hollywood with a French convent, English school background. Her father is Chinese, her mother American.

Seen on a Bus

Oriental in appearance, pleasantly English in accent, Lotus is strictly American in aspirations. Arriving here two years ago as a student, she probably would be fluttering masculine hearts on Southern California campuses if M-G-M's astute Billy Grady hadn't glimpsed her one afternoon on a bus.

Waiting for a bus does have its compensations after all. For since then, everything has been easy for Lotus. Though the studio tested thousands of girls for the part — American and European, as well as Chinese and Eurasian — her youth and vitality won the battle.

It's a break of a lifetime, this part, and Lotus knows it. Talking nineteen to the dozen, the other afternoon on the "Good Earth" set, she looked like one of the better college freshman in her military-minded gray suit and absurd scarlet handkerchief perched on her black curls. But her ambitions are adult. China's famous passiveness is conspicuously absent.

Father Not Told

Lotus is living in Beverly Hills, with her mother and two brothers. But her father, long in the service of the national government of China, is in Nanking. He hasn't been informed of his daughter's good fortune.

"You know how things are in China," she reminded me, wrinkling her pretty nose. After we had reminisced about our last meeting — on a windy Nanking road corner the day the Liu family left Shanghai for California — she continued, "It's so different being in pictures here. And government people are so conservative."

Originally the Nanking government didn't care a great deal for the Buck masterpiece. The poverty of China's peasantry is not the angle the younger, foreign-educated officials strive to present to the world. And the story of Wang Lung and his stolid, homely wife is the story of the soil: of mud huts and famine and marauding war lords sickeningly familiar outside the treaty ports.

Deleted by Experts

The film version, however, has been operated on by experts — for something like three years. Removal or modification of all episodes dealing with opium traffic, famine and banditry so pleased the powers at Nanking that the ill-fated George Hill and his technical experts shot exteriors all over China two years ago.

But the character of the predatory Lotus escaped unscathed, according to the girl who will play the part. Lotus is her real name. And she has a sister called Blossom.

"I'm just a so-and-so," she explained, with a characteristic shrug of her slim shoulders. "I get into Wang Lung's house as his second wife and live there in luxury. I even snatch his poor wife's favorite pearl earrings. But when the lord and master discovers that I'm getting too fond of his good-looking young son he rises up in his wrath and shouts "Go!" And that — I'm afraid — is the end of poor Lotus."

Such an ignominious end is all very well for Lotus, the Soochow charmer, a quaint little figure in her short silk jacket and baggy trousers, lotus flowers in her hair. But for Lotus Liu — with an American mother, a Chinese father and her own ideas of getting on in the world — it's only the beginning.

— San Antonio Express, May 10, 1936

More like the beginning of the end: it was soon reported in The San Antonio Light (June 20, 1936) that Lotus Liu was being replaced by Sidney Fox, best remembered today for her role as the damsel in distress in Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). But then, just two weeks later (July 1, 1936), the paper followed up with the news that Lotus was back again for the role.

After signing Lotus Liu (an Eurasian beauty) for the role of Lotus in the picture, the powers-that-be suddenly had a brain storm and decided that Sidney Fox would make a better Lotus than a real Chinese girl so Miss Liu was out and Miss Fox was in. At least, temporarily. After two weeks of testing, Miss Fox was found unsatisfactory for the role and now Miss Liu is right back again and this time — she'll stay."

Well, no — not this time. Lotus was replaced once again by a white actress. This time it was Austrian dancer Tilly Losch, who ended up shooting the role. And here's the real kicker: according to one source I've found (Award-Winning Films of the 1930s by John Reid), Lotus Liu dubbed the lines for thick-accented Tilly Losch. Talk about sucks!

Alas, the "break of a lifetime" for this "potential prodigy" just disappeared into thin air. Nevertheless, even though Lotus Liu lost her chance to star in The Good Earth, she does appear briefly in the film. She's not listed in the cast credits on IMDB or the TCM movie database, but thanks to the Chinese Digest article (which I transcribed in my previous post), I was clued in to her 10 seconds of fame.

Here she is folks, making the absolute most of her meager screen time — the charming Miss Lotus Liu!

The Good Earth: Keeping It Real

Left to right: Roland Lui, Caroline Chew, Chingwah Lee, Mary Wong, James Z.M. Lee, Soo Yong, William Law, Lotus Liu, and Frank Tang

For the longest time I avoided watching The Good Earth (1937). For me it was always just that film for which Anna May Wong was passed over as leading lady in favor of a white actress. Because of its reputation today as a yellowface extravaganza, it's easy to overlook the importance of The Good Earth as a positive change in the way that Chinese were portrayed on the Hollywood screen.

Of course, it would have been an even more significant change if the roles had been played by Chinese actors. Pearl Buck evidently tried to convince MGM to do just this. At one point, there was talk about Shanghai movie queen Hu Die starring in the lead role of O-Lan and even about making the film with Chinese dialogue and English subtitles. Now, that would have been groundbreaking! But since this is Hollywood, the story ends disappointingly with Austrian actress Luise Rainer winning an Academy Award for her frankly mediocre portrayal of O-Lan.

Last year I finally decided to give The Good Earth a try after discovering the following article in the March 1937 issue of Chinese Digest. It alerted me to some of the real Chinese folks who starred in and worked on the film. Sadly, most of them were used — per the recommendation of casting director Albert Lewin — as "atmosphere" rather than as principal actors.

It's a shame, really. In my opinion, Chingwah Lee could have given a much more natural performance as Wang the farmer than Paul Muni. William Law, who appears briefly as a gate keeper, could have performed the role of Wang's uncle just as well as character actor Walter Connolly. Soo Yong could have easily replaced Jessie Ralph. Poor Lotus Liu was actually chosen for the role of Lotus (Wang's second wife), but it eventually fell into the hands of Austrian dancer Tilly Losch.

Anyway, it's no use playing "what if". Let us instead salute the real Chinese of The Good Earth, some of whom I'll be profiling in the coming weeks.

WHO'S WHO AMONG THE CHINESE
IN "THE GOOD EARTH"


Soo Yong is an A.B. from the University of Hawaii and an M.A. from Columbia University. Her major is botany, and she has taught in high schools. She made her bow to America when she served as curtain raiser for Mei Lan Fang, and America is still loud in praise of her fine English diction — "better than the best among the English and American". She made history again when she appeared as a Manchu princess in the picture "Painted Veil". After that performance MGM chained her by a "Good Earth" contract to play both the ancient mistress and the sloppy sharp-tongued aunt.


Mary Wong is the prettiest Chinese girl appearing in "The Good Earth". In San Francisco she is a buyer and expert sales manager at the China Emporium, of which she has a partnership. In "The Good Earth" she radiated so much charm as the Little Bride that no cutting of even an inch from her acting was possible without removing something of the uniqueness from the picture. However, they had to make her speechless for the simple reason that Chinese brides are supposed to be seen but not heard. "That's the most difficult thing for me to do — remaining silent", said Mary afterward.


Keye Luke is known to the world through his Charlie Chan series of thrillers, in which he plays the Chinese detective's son. But a new personality emerged in the Elder Son of "The Good Earth". The part being more in keeping his personality he did a very fine portrayal. Keye was an artist from Seattle before he took up acting. His painting has that subtle touch which characterizes a Sung. An intellectual of the first order, his vocabulary would put the average American to shame. An introvert, he likes a good smoke, a quiet conversation among friends, and a laugh at the antics of Sinclair Lewis's children.


Roland Lui is typical of the second generation Chinese — a good athlete, a high school graduate, the personification of health and pep. Plays football and basketball with relish. He received a year's training at the Motion Picture Academy (with pay) before participating in "The Good Earth".


William Law is a representative to the Chinese Six Companies; a Chinese division manager of the Pacific Coast Paper Company, and a career man at the Columbia Importing Company. A good singer, he was on the Orpheum Circuit in the good old days before the depression. He enjoys a good cigar and a good joke — and excels in these two fine arts.


Caroline Chew is a graduate of Mills College, a daughter of the late famous Chung Sa Yat Po publisher, Ng Poon Chew. She studied dancing under both European and Oriental masters and has given many concerts here and in the East. She plays the part of a dancer in "The Good Earth" tea house scene.


Lotus Liu is from Shanghai and was attending USC when signed by MGM to appear in "The Good Earth", moon mandolin and all. Originally, she was to play the part of "Lotus", but the studio executives considered her too sweet for so worldly a role.


Chingwah Lee is a zoologist, ethnologist, ceramic art authority, and one-time social worker. He is a University of California graduate — the alma mater of more California second-generation Chinese than can be counted by this time. He is director and manager of Chinatown Trade and Travel Bureau, active head of the oldest Chinese boy scout troop in the United States, a publisher and associate editor of the Chinese Digest.

A San Franciscan all his life, he is a fount of information on old Chinatown days. He possesses the best private collection of ceramic wares in Chinatown.

He bears a close resemblance to two of China's outstanding men — Dr. Wu Lien-teh and Dr. Hu Shih.

James Z.M. Lee was attending USC as a Shakespearean scholar when signed by MGM to be the technical advisor for "The Good Earth" company. For three long years he assisted with the production, joining the expedition to China for background shots and props. He is considered the most reliable expert on things Chinese in movieland today.

Frank Tang is a member of the art department. A graduate of Mission High of San Francisco and of the Sun Chung Academy, his calligraphy is second to none in southern California. The Chinese banners and other native writings in "The Good Earth" scenes are products of his fine brush.