The First Chinese Woman to Win an Oscar
In a career already marked by trailblazing achievement, Michelle Yeoh just took home the top prize in Hollywood. The actress of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was awarded the best actress Oscar, beating out such notable nominees as Cate Blanchett, Ana de Armas and Andrea Riseborough.
Her win cements her place in history as the first Asian woman to earn a lead actress Oscar in 95 years. She’s also the first openly Asian performer to receive a nomination.
Michelle Yeoh
Michelle Yeoh is an award-winning actress from Malaysia who started her career in Hong Kong action films and later made a name for herself in Hollywood. She starred in a number of major films, including James Bond’s Tomorrow Never Dies and Ang Lee’s martial arts movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Yeoh also starred in sci-fi and survival movies such as Sunshine and Far North. She also took on roles that challenged stereotypes of Asian women, such as Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi in Luc Besson’s The Lady (2011).
Yeoh made history with her 2023 Academy Award for Best Actress win for her role in the psychedelic drama film Everything Everywhere All at Once. Her character Evelyn Wang travels through the multiverse, inhabiting around 70 different versions of herself. Yeoh received praise from critics for her performance, which was a mix of comedy, romance and family drama. Her Oscar was the first for a performer of Asian descent.
She was a frontrunner in the category, beating out other nominees Cate Blanchett for Tar, Ana de Armas for Blonde, Andrea Riseborough for To Leslie and Michelle Williams for The Fabelmans. The 60-year-old actress credits decades of fervent activism in the Asian community with making it possible for actors, who were once relegated to sidekick and background roles, to become major stars.
But despite her success in Hollywood, Yeoh’s battle for Asian representation is not over. In recent years, whitewashing controversy has flared up again over Scarlett Johansson playing a Japanese manga character in Ghost in the Shell and Tilda Swinton’s Tibetan role in Doctor Strange. And while the mainstream media has largely moved on from its initial coverage of Yeoh’s win, social-media users are still weighing in on the debate over whether she deserved the honor.
Merle Oberon
A mixed-race actress during a time when the Hays Code prevented Asians from acting alongside white costars, Oberon managed to break into American films with the help of producer Alexander Korda. Her roles in The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Private Life of Henry VIII, The Dark Angel, and Wuthering Heights cemented her in Hollywood royalty for decades to come.
Born Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson in 1911, she was the child of a white British father and an Indian mother, per The Washington Post. She was raised in Calcutta, but when she moved to England at 17, her career started with bit parts before gaining momentum. Her first big breakthrough came when she was cast in 1933’s The Private Life of Henry VIII, where she played Anne Boleyn.
By 1934, American film producers had taken notice of Oberon, who was nominated for her work in Sidney Franklin’s The Dark Angel. It was the first Oscar nomination for a woman of color, though Anna May Wong wouldn’t win one until 1939 for Gone with the Wind.
Although it’s a common practice for actors to change their names, lighten their skin, and even alter their accents in order to make themselves appear more like their European co-stars, Oberon took things to the next level. She lied about her birth place, told people her grandmother was her maid, and even made up a backstory in which she was born in Tasmania.
Despite all of her efforts to pass for white, Oberon’s beauty and talent made her a star. She starred in more than 50 movies before her death in 1979, and she was known for regaling magazine reporters with stories about her time in Hollywood.
During her later years, she mellowed and was less reliant on publicity, but she still kept up with her fans through appearances on shows like What’s My Line? She also remained a beloved figure in Hollywood, with Charlton Heston calling her “a lady whose beauty is legendary.” She passed away in 1979 at the age of 68. She’s since been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Katharine Hepburn
Katharine Hepburn is one of the most enduring icons in film history, known for her beauty, wit, and eccentric strength. In a career that spanned over six decades, Hepburn earned 12 Academy Award nominations and won four Best Actress Oscars. Hepburn was a pioneer in women’s roles on both the stage and the screen, and her legacy is unmatched.
Hepburn’s career took off after she debuted on Broadway in 1932, in an adaptation of Lysistrata. After positive reviews and a lengthy run, Hollywood came calling. She signed a contract with director George Cukor and appeared in several films over the next decade.
Her savvy approach to her craft paid off. She bought the rights to the stage play The Philadelphia Story, starring on screen with Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart, and single-handedly revived her faltering film career. She continued to excel on the screen in films like Gregory La Cava’s Morning Glory, Little Women, Howard Hawks’ screwball romantic comedy Bringing Up Baby, and Holiday.
But the one film that catapulted her into the pantheon of great actresses was Tennessee Williams’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, in which Hepburn turned maternal instinct into malevolent perversion. It’s a tour de force, upsetting in its grotesque excess and heartbreaking in its utterly human honesty.
In 1951, Hepburn starred in another landmark movie, The African Queen, opposite Humphrey Bogart. In this film, Hepburn plays a spinster missionary in colonial Africa during World War I who must flee her village after Germany wipes it out. Bogart’s character offers to take her down the river on his steamer, but she insists on continuing on to civilization.
Hepburn’s career was hampered by her marriage to wealthy businessman Ludlow Ogden Smith, which ended in divorce two years later. She returned to the Broadway stage in a role that seemed tailor-made for her, and it was in this production that she met Spencer Tracy.
The two teamed up for several films, including the 1940 version of The Philadelphia Story. Although these films weren’t as successful as The African Queen, they did help to boost Hepburn’s flagging popularity and rekindled her smoldering image.
Luise Rainer
In 1936 Rainer became a stage and film star in Germany, appearing on both sides of the Iron Curtain. During her time in Europe she saw the rise of Nazism and witnessed firsthand the burning of the Reichstag, a defining moment for her generation. After a few films she joined Max Reinhardt’s touring company and found herself in Vienna and Berlin performing Pirandello and Shaw. An MGM scout noticed her and signed her to a contract. She was determined to stay in Europe and rejected the offer.
MGM’s failure to find her adequate follow-up material left her frustrated and disappointed in Hollywood. Her next role, as a taxi driver’s wife in Big City (1937) with Spencer Tracy, was a flop and her attempts to play New Orleans flirts in The Toy Wife and The Great Ziegfeld fell flat as well.
By 1938 she had had enough and walked out on her contract. She had also married the playwright Clifford Odets, with whom she would spend three tempestuous years. Rainer went on to become a prolific theatre actress and in the 1950s began a new interest in art, eventually exhibiting her work.
She was also active in the war effort, appearing at war bond rallies and going on a tour of North Africa and Italy to boost soldiers’ morale. She also worked as an interpreter and translator for the United States Information Agency.
Rainer made several more film appearances, but she was no longer satisfied with her career and began to feel her age. She decided to devote more of her time to painting and poetry. In her later years she lived in London’s genteel Eaton Square. Her entry in Who’s Who read: “formerly mountain climbing, now writing and painting.” She is survived by her daughter and two granddaughters.
The Oscars have been making great strides in diversity behind the camera over the past decade, with Ang Lee winning for Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi, Bong Joon-Ho for Parasite, and Chloe Zhao for Nomadland. Hopefully, we will see more wins by Asian women in the future.
