I had the idea to do this ONTD original a while ago but I’m a procrastinator so I never got around to actually doing it. On Sunday when Ke Huy Quan became only the second Asian American to win a best supporting actor Oscar, I went to YouTube to find Haing S. Ngor's acceptance speech when he won for 1984's The Killing Fields. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the person handing the award to him was Linda Hunt.
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It is a loose tradition for the previous year's winner in the opposite category (actor/actress) to present the award, so in theory it was not surprising that Linda Hunt was there. She won the Oscar for best supporting actress the year before for her role as Billy Kwan, a Chinese-Australian man with dwarfism, which felt similar to Marky Mark handing an award to the all Asian cast of Everything Everywhere All at Once. Seeing that video was enough to motivate me to finally put together this post. I debated whether or not to include photos/videos because some of these examples are ridiculously offensive. I decided to include them so that people can judge for themselves.
Yellowface is when an Asian role is played by a non-Asian actor. It's usually accompanied by makeup and/or prosthetics to change their appearance. Note: this is related to but slightly different from the issue of whitewashing, which is when white actors are cast in non-white roles.
First the aforementioned Linda Hunt - she played Billy Kwan in the 1982 film The Year of Living Dangerously (starring Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver). In her screen test, she wore "paste-on pieces above her eyes to [appear] Asian." Linda Hunt is probably best known as Hetty on NCIS: Los Angeles and the voice of Grandmother Willow in the Disney animated film Pocahontas. She was also nominated for a best actress Tony for the Broadway play End of the World.
In 1937, Luise Rainer played the Chinese character O-Lan in The Good Earth (based on Pearl S. Buck's novel). Rainer won a best actress Oscar for this role. The main characters were played by white actors, but there were a handful of Asian actors cast in minor roles.
Yul Brynner won multiple awards for playing the role of King Mongkut in The King and I. He originated the role on Broadway in 1951 and won a Tony for best featured actor. He played the same role in the 1956 movie adaptation which won him an Oscar for best actor. In 1976, he signed on to reprise his role as the king in a national tour followed by a Broadway revival. The first night of the tour, he had such bad laryngitis that his son spoke all of his lines and sang all of his songs from the orchestra pit while Yul lip synched. In 1985, he received a special Tony in recognition of his 4,525 performances in The King and I.
He claimed that his Russian grandmother Natalya was a Eurasian woman with partial Buryat heritage. According to
this family tree (you can click to go further back in his lineage) which goes back to Natalya's great grandfather, there are Russian husbands and nameless wives (Natalya's mother is the only one named) so there's no definitive proof either way that he did or did not have a Buryat ancestor somewhere further up his family tree. Regardless of his ancestry, he performed the role of King Mongkut by darkening his skin and wearing makeup to make him look Asian, which is the definition of yellowface.
Also of note: Rita Moreno was cast as Tuptim in the movie adaptation of The King and I with Yul Brynner. In an interview years later, she said that half Asian actress France Nuyen was also up for the role of Tuptim (at the time, France was said to be half Vietnamese but later in life she said her father was actually Chinese). Rita said France probably didn't get the role because she didn't have a musical background and that Rita had an advantage because she was a contract player at the studio.
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The irony is that Rita Moreno's singing was dubbed by Leona Gordon in The King and I, and France was cast in a film adaptation of the musical South Pacific the following year. France later got a master's degree in clinical psychology and specialized in working with abused women, abused children, and women in prison. In 1989, she received a Woman of the Year award work. Fun fact: Rita and France both dated Marlon Brando (they both have terrible stories about him).
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In 1950, Julliard trained actress Juanita Hall, who had a Black father and an Irish-American mother, was the first Black actress to win a Tony for best supporting actress. Unfortunately, the role that got her this award was Bloody Mary, a Tonkinese (formerly part of China, present day Vietnam) character in the musical South Pacific. Bloody Mary was based on a real Tonkinese woman who Pulitzer Prize winning author James Michiner met while stationed in Vanuatu. Hall reprised her role in the 1958 film adaptation of South Pacific, but the producers decided to have her voice dubbed for the movie. Someone synched Juanita's singing on the original Broadway cast recording with the movie:
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Juanita Hall also played the Chinese character Madame Liang in Flower Drum Song on Broadway (1958) and in the film adaptation (1961).
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One of the most well known examples of yellowface controversy was Miss Saigon, which won both an Olivier and a Tony for Jonathan Pryce who wore prosthetics to alter the shape of his eyes and makeup to alter the color of his skin. When the show opened in the West End in 1989, British critics saw no issue with white actors playing Asian roles. In addition to Jonathan Pryce playing the Engineer, Keith Burns played the role of Kim's cousin/fiance/murder victim Thuy.
When the show began its transfer to Broadway in 1990, Actors' Equity (the union that represents Broadway actors) refused to let Pryce be cast as the Engineer, saying, "The casting of a Caucasian actor made up to appear Asian is an affront to the Asian community. The casting choice is especially disturbing when the casting of an Asian actor, in the role, would be an important and significant opportunity to break the usual pattern of casting Asians in minor roles."
British Actors' Equity responded by saying this decision was a violation of the principles of artistic integrity and freedom, and British producer Cameron Mackintosh threatened to cancel the Broadway production despite the fact that the upcoming Broadway show had already sold a record $25 million in advance tickets. Mackintosh, who had already had several disagreements with Actors' Equity about casting over the years, dug in his heels and unironically accused Equity of denying Pryce the job "on the basis of his race." Mackintosh claimed he had conducted a worldwide search for an Asian actor to play the Engineer and had been unable to find a single Asian actor capable of playing the role. He insisted that Pryce was the only actor who could play this part on Broadway (a few months later after Broadway and Actors' Equity relented, allowing him to bring Pryce to New York, Mackintosh admitted that the worldwide search had only been for Kim, NOT the Engineer, and said that he "regretted the misunderstanding" - translation: he straight up lied).
His resistance to cast an Asian actor as the Engineer was somewhat ironic considering that he had held an international casting call to find Asian actresses to play Kim and Gigi, stating at the time that this was necessary for "authenticity." The show's official coffee table book, The Story of Miss Saigon, said that the creative team was "determined to have as many real-life Asians in the cast as possible; Madame Butterfly-type make-up, though suitable enough for opera, would, they knew, be inadequate, especially for the female members of the cast. Also, the physical demands made on performers in Miss Saigon required an authentic Asian litheness and grace.” But apparently make up to make the male members of the cast look Asian was considered adequate.
To add insult to injury, Mackintosh and British Equity claimed that Pryce "never wore yellowface" in the West End production (despite all the photographic proof in various cast photos to the contrary). Mackintosh later admitted that Pryce had worn eye prosthetics but said that this did not constitute yellowface.
Lots of (white) people defended the choice to cast Jonathan Pryce saying that the character is Eurasian, but nowhere in the original script does it actually indicate that (in later productions, a line was added to the Bangkok scenes where someone refers to the Engineer as "half breed"). The only reference to the Engineer's origins are in the song "The American Dream" where he says that his father was a tattoo artist in Haiphong and that his mother was a prostitute who got high on betel nuts. After the casting controversy, the creative team behind Miss Saigon began referring to the Engineer as Eurasian.
The Engineer was the first lead character on Broadway who was specifically Asian since Pacific Overtures, a 1976 Stephen Sondheim musical that closed after only six months, despite being nominated for ten Tonys. Asian American actors were understandably angry that they were not being considered for the first Asian lead character in over a decade. One Asian American actor with Broadway credits was flat out told he could not do the role.
Actors' Equity eventually caved, allowing Pryce to join the Broadway cast. Pryce won both an Olivier and a Tony for his role as the Engineer. One of the few positive results of this very public fight was that in the Broadway production, Pryce no longer wore eye prosthetics. The other very positive result of this discourse was that once Pryce left the show, every actor to play the Engineer on Broadway since then has been Asian.
The following are actors who were nominated for yellowface roles but did not win
Aline MacMahon was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for playing a character named Mrs. Ling Tan the 1944 movie Dragon Seed, based on Pearl S. Buck's book. There was only one Asian actor in the entire cast (Clarence Lung played an unnamed character referred to only as "fourth cousin").
Dragon Seed also starred Katharine Hepburn in yellowface as the main character, a Chinese woman named Jade (a role that Judy Garland reportedly wanted to play) but she received no acting nominations.
In 1946, Gale Sondergaard played Lady Thiang in Anna and the King of Siam, the precursor to The King and I. She was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar, and the movie won two Oscars (best cinematography and best art direction). The movie also starred Rex Harrison as King Mongkut. In 1940, Gale Sondergaard played a Eurasian character in The Letter, starring Bette Davis (this movie was nominated for seven Oscars).
Jennifer Jones starred as Han Suyin, a Eurasian doctor from China, in the 1955 movie Love Is a Many Splendored Thing. It was nominated for eight Oscars, including a best actress nomination for Jones. The movie won three Oscars (best song, best costume design, and best score).
In 1985, Joel Grey was nominated for a best supporting actor Golden Globe for playing a Korean martial arts expert named Chiun in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (which was based on the pulp fiction series The Destroyer). The movie also received an Oscar nomination for best (yellowface) make up.
In 1958, Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song opened on Broadway. It featured an almost entirely Asian cast. Originally a white nightclub comic named Larry Storch was cast in the lead role of Sammy Fong but during the pre-Broadway run in Boston, the role was recast with Larry Blyden, another white actor (who happened to be married to the show's choreographer, Carol Haney). He received a Tony nomination for best actor. The show received an additional five Tony nominations but won only one for best conductor and musical director. It was the longest running musical of the 1958 season and closed after 600 performances.
A partial list of actors who have performed in yellowface
Ashton Kutcher as Raj in a 2012 Popchips commercial
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Fred Astaire as a Chinese laborer in the Limestone Blues act of Ziegfeld Follies
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Eddie Murphy as Mr. Wong in Norbit
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Loretta Young as Sun Toya San, a Chinese orphan, in The Hatchet Man (that's English actor Leslie Fenton next to her). The cast included only one Asian actor. The rest of the Chinese characters were played by white actors in yellowface.
Jim Sturgess as Hae-Joo Chang in Cloud Atlas
Tony Randall as Dr. Lao in 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (this movie received an Oscar for best makeup)
Sean Connery as James Bond in You Only Live Twice
Marlon Brando as Sakini in The Teahouse of the August Moon
Mary Pickford as Cho Cho San in Madame Butterfly
Lon Chaney as Mr. Wu in Mr. Wu
Bela Lugosi as Mr. Wong in The Mysterious Mr. Wong
Peter Lorre as Kentaro Moto in the Mr. Moto film series
Anthony Quinn as Chang Tai in Island of Lost Men
Boris Karloff as Mr. Wong in The Mystery of Mr. Wong
Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
John Wayne as Genghis Khan in Conqueror
Myrna Loy as Onoto in The Crimson City, Yasmani in The Black Watch, Fah Lo See in The Mask of Fu Manchu, and Ursula Georgi in Thirteen Women
Peter Sellers as the Indian physician in The Road to Hong Kong, Dr. Ahmed el Kabir in The Millionairess, Hrundi V. Bakshi in The Party, and Sidney Wang in Murder by Death
Ricardo Montalban as Nakamura in Sayonara
Alec Guiness as Koichi Asano in A Majority of One
Henry Silva as Chunjin in The Manchurian Candidate
Flora Robson as the Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi in 55 Days at Peking
David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu & Kung Fu: The Legend Continues
Fisher Stevens as Ben Jabituya/Jahveri in Short Circuit
Christopher Walken as Feng in Balls of Fury
Fu Manchu has been played by Warner Oland, Boris Karloff, Peter Sellers, Christopher Lee, and Nicholas Cage
Charlie Chan has been played by Warner Oland, Sidney Toler, Roland Winters,and J. Carrol Naish
Dishonorable mentions:
American poet Michael Derrick Hudson submitted his work using the name of a female Chinese-American high school classmate (Yi-Fen Chou). He claimed that the same poem had been rejected 40 times when he submitted it using his real name and was rejected an additional 9 times using the fake name before it was accepted by problematic writer Sherman Alexie for the 2015 Best American Poetry anthology. Prior to this, poems submitted under his real name had been accepted by several other publications and won various poetry prizes/awards.
Another dishonorable mention goes to every ballet company that still performs the Chinese tea dance in the Nutcracker with straw hats, pointed fingers, slant eyed makeup, shuffling steps, bowing, black wigs with chopsticks, Fu Manchu facial hair, etc.
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