Asian Actors in Hollywood

     Just as Asian actresses had a difficult time getting meaningful roles in Hollywood, the men also had a hard time.  The stereotype of Asian male was deeply rooted in Hollywood, where male actors could only get parts to play either villains or servants, always inferior to none Asian actors in pay and position.  However, in the very early years of Hollywood it wasn't quite like that.  As mentioned in the blog on Asian actresses, Anna May Wong enjoyed great success in Hollywood at first, but then her roles began to shrink and she was forced to move to Europe to revive her career.
     In the early years of Hollywood, during the silent film era, a Japanese actor by the name of Sessue Hayakawa was possibly one of the biggest male stars in Hollywood.  Hayakawa played leading romantic roles, the "great lover" of silent film era.  Yes, he was the big romantic star before Rudolf Valentino.  In fact, Valentino may have never gotten his start had Hayakawa not turned down the role for the movie The Sheik, which rocketed Valentino to stardom!  Hayakawa was the highest paid actor in Hollywood at one point, making a reported two million dollars a year, an unthinkable amount in pre World War One era!  He is said to have regularly earned $5,000 or more a week during his heyday.  He built a huge castle-like house in Beverly Hills, drove a gold-plated Pierce-Arrow car, and threw lavish parties.  He hung out with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Tom Mix, and such famous Hollywood luminaries.  He was a Hollywood mega star before there was such a thing.  
     Just who was Sessue Hayakawa?  Some of you may remember him from his role as a psychotic Japanese prison camp commander in the 1957 movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai.  Born Kintaro Hayakawa of a respected Samurai family, his father was the governor of Chiba Prefecture.  Hayakawa attended the Japanese Imperial Naval Academy, but was forced to abandon his naval career when he busted an eardrum diving too deep while swimming with friends.  He decided to pursue a business career, possibly in banking, so he came to America to study economics and business at the University of Chicago.  While at the university, he played football, was a star quarterback for the varsity team.  After graduating from the university, on his way back to Japan he spent some time in Los Angeles and was exposed to Hollywood.  He became fascinated with the movie industry and rather than returning to Japan, he decided to stay and try his hand at acting.  He became almost an immediate success, landing leading roles due to what was referred to as "brooding good looks."
     Although he enjoyed great success (he even owned his own production company), anti Asian laws and sentiment were beginning to have an effect on his career.  Laws were passed making it illegal for Asians and Caucasians to kiss, let alone marry. So romantic scenes could not be made between an Asian and a Caucasian actor or actress.  He made the transition from silent films to "talkies" without much problem, but unless he produced the movie, roles were becoming extremely rare.  So, like his Asian female counterpart Anna May Wong, Hayakawa left Hollywood in the 1930s and went to Europe where he, like Anna May, resurrected his movie career.  In a way he was fortunate that he went to Europe in the 1930s, he would have probably been put in an internment camp during the war, had he stayed in America.  Hayakawa was against the war and felt that Japan was wrong in going to war against America.  While in Paris during war years, he actually helped the French Resistance movement with transmitting messages, etc.  The Nazis did not suspect him because he was Japanese, remember, Japan was an ally of Germany!
     When the war ended one of the Hollywood big time producers remembered him and invited him to come back to Hollywood.  He almost wasn't allowed entry, because he was Japanese.  But some Americans who were in Paris during the war vouched for him, said that he actually even helped the French Resistance, so he was allowed to come to Hollywood.  However, his career never took off in America and he returned to Japan in the 1960s.
     It is ironic that the two arguably most talented Asian actors and actresses of the early era, Anna May Wong and Sessue Hayakawa, had to leave America and go to Europe to have success in landing good roles!  All of it was due to the passage of anti Asian laws and other racist policies and attitudes on the part of US government and corporate America. Essentially, Asians were portrayed and thought of as a subservient, inferior, and an unattractive people.  It reached a point where most Americans actually believed that Asians were intellectually and physically inferior, and World War Two anti Japanese propaganda only encouraged that kind of thinking. 
     Today, it seems there is almost an overkill in the number of Asian actors and actresses.  It is almost as if Hollywood is trying to make up for those years when actors such as Hayakawa and Wong had to go to Europe to find success.  Still, it is mind boggling how in this day and age, Hollywood still manages to portray in some movies or TV shows, Asia and Asians inaccurately, presenting caricatures.  But that's Hollywood, I guess.  It will never change, and Hollywood was never known to have been historically or factually accurate in their portrayal of people and cultures, Asian or otherwise!  I believe Hollywood refers to it as "artistic freedom."