by Anna May Wong, Hollywood’s first Asian film starWill be the first Asian American to be printed on the US dollar. The U.S. Mint on Monday began producing a quarter featuring Anna May Wong, featuring a close-up of her face held in her slender hands, part of a new coin series that includes author Maya W. Angelo and astronaut Sally Ryder. The U.S. Mint expects to mint more than 300 million Anna May yellow quarters. Anna May Wong was born in Los Angeles’ Chinatown in 1905, where her parents owned a laundromat. Around that time, the film industry moved into Los Angeles, and more and more productions were filmed in the neighborhoods around Anna May’s home. Anna May Wong was determined to become an actress and began to play tricks until she had her first leading role in The Toll of the Sea (1922) when she was 17 years old. But the Asian-American actor’s limited roles have hampered her career. Anna May Wong famously said that she “died a thousand times” because in every movie she was in, her character died.
