"Love is a many splendored thing"

[CatWoman]

I woke up this morning, and that movie was on the telly (I sleep with the telly on).

Um, where there problems employing chinese actresses in the 50's?

[underpants]

1. Wow you ARE the Catwoman

one of our cats sleeps on the telly too.

[CatWoman]

6. smartass!!!!!!

:D

:hi:

[parkening]

2. How about Gengis Khan

played by John Wayne!

[CatWoman]

8. yeah, that's right

that was some scary shit, wasn't it? :scared:

[fertilizeonarbusto]

3. Yes and no

There were some Asian actresses around, mostly Japanese-American, like Pat Suzuki or just plain Japanese, like Oscar-winner Miyoshi Umeki, But Jennifer Jones starred in that movie, for one reason: bankability. 20th Century-Fox was not going to cough up the dough for a very big-budget production back then with a relatively unknown Asian actress (as all Asian actresses were back then) on the lead. If they'd had one that could pull box-office, they would have gone with her. Things are a bit different now, fortunately.
However, I'm left witrh a bit of a bad taste in my mouth when I think about requiring a part to be played by someone of that ethnicity. After all, the point of acting is to be what one is not. Should Shakespeare never have written "Othello" because of difficulty casting a real Moor in 1600's London??

[GRLMGC]

5. That's true

but wasn't Jennifer Jones' character supposed to be biracial? Either way, they probably couldn't have cast a real biracial actress, which is sad.

[Spinzonner]

4. Well, the character was supposed to be EURasian

but even wholly foreign parts - and American indians, etc. - were typically played by caucasians. It was racist, concern the public wouldnt identify with such actors, lack of foreign stars for such roles (note there were some stereotypical roles available).

Some pretty absurd cases.

The Good Earth was all caucasians.

The original Anna and the King (not the KIng and I) had Rex Harrison as the Siamese ruler.

John Wayne as Genghis Kahn.

and many, many more ...

[GRLMGC]

7. Yeah

there are worse cases than "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" considering she was supposed to be biracial. You provided some good examples.