64 Facts About Nancy Kwan

Nancy Kwan Ka-shen is a Chinese-American actress.

Nancy Kwan Wing-hong was the son of lawyer Nancy Kwan King-sun and Juliann Loke Yuen-ying, daughter of Loke Yew.

Nancy Kwan attended Cambridge University and met Scott in London.

Except during World War II, Nancy Kwan had a comfortable early life.

Nancy Kwan wrote in 1960 that as an eight-year-old, her fortune-teller "predicted travel, fame, and fortune for me".

Nancy Kwan attended the Catholic Maryknoll Convent School until she was 13 years old, after which she travelled to Kingsmoor School in Glossop, England a boarding school that her brother Ka-keung was then attending.

Nancy Kwan's brother studied to become an architect and she studied to become a dancer.

When Nancy Kwan was 18, she pursued her dream of becoming a ballet dancer by attending the Royal Ballet School in London.

Nancy Kwan studied performing arts subjects such as stage make-up and danced every day for four hours.

Nancy Kwan submitted the application and was discovered by Stark in a film studio constructed by her architect father.

Nancy Kwan praised Kwan's features: an "acceptable face" and "being alluringly leggy [and] perfectly formed".

For each screen test, Nancy Kwan, accompanied by her younger sister, was chauffeured to the studio by her father's driver.

Once, upon viewing her screen test, Nancy Kwan said, "I'm a terrible girl" and "squealed with embarrassment"; acting as a prostitute was a vastly different experience from her comfortable life with her affluent father.

Nancy Kwan did a third screen test after four months had passed, and a deadlock existed between whether to choose Nancy Kwan or Nuyen.

Nancy Kwan signed a seven-year contract with Stark's Seven Arts Productions at a beginning salary of $300 a week, even though she was not given a distinct role.

Nuyen received the role and Nancy Kwan later took the place of Nuyen on Broadway.

Nancy Kwan moved to England to film the movie, leaving an opening for Kwan to ascend to the lead female role in the touring production.

In 1959, one month after Nuyen was selected for the film role and while Nancy Kwan was touring in Toronto, Stark told her to screen test again for the film.

Stark discovered Nancy Kwan taking refuge in her dressing room, sobbing grievously.

In movies where Nancy Kwan plays Asian roles, the makeup artists reshape her brown eyes.

Nancy Kwan was given the nickname "Chinese Bardot" for her unforgettable dance performance.

Nancy Kwan remarked that in Beverly Hills, she can walk without attracting notice.

Nancy Kwan rationalized, "[It] is better in America because America is much bigger, I guess".

Nancy Kwan said in a 1994 interview with the South China Morning Post that even decades after her film debut and despite her having done over 50 films thence, viewers continued to send numerous letters to her about the film.

The scene of Nancy Kwan, reposed on a davenport and adorned in a dazzling cheongsam, while showing a "deliciously decadent flash of thigh", became an iconic image.

Nancy Kwan explained that it "has slits because Chinese girls have pretty legs" and "the slits show their legs".

Scholar Jennifer Leah Chan of New York University chronicled the media attention Nancy Kwan received after starring in two Hollywood films, writing that Nancy Kwan's fame peaked in 1962.

Nancy Kwan commuted in a white British sports car and danced to Latin verses.

Nancy Kwan enjoyed listening to Johnny Mathis records and reading Chinese history texts.

In 1962, Nancy Kwan was dating Swiss actor Maximilian Schell.

Nancy Kwan said a number of Americans married just to leave home or to "make love".

In 1961, Nancy Kwan offered to work as a teacher for King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

Nancy Kwan later acknowledged that he appended the teacher "must be attractive" so that more soldiers would attend the sessions.

Nancy Kwan discovered that she had to journey to Europe and Hong Kong to escape the ethnic typecasting in Hollywood that confined her largely to Asian roles in spite of her Eurasian appearance.

Nancy Kwan played an Italian circus performer who was the love interest of Boone's character.

Nancy Kwan found the separation from her son, Bernie, who was not yet a year old, difficult.

In 1963, Nancy Kwan starred as the title character of Tamahine.

In Fate Is the Hunter, her seventh film, Nancy Kwan played an ichthyologist.

Nancy Kwan's roles were predominantly comic characters, which she said were more difficult roles than "straight dramatic work" owing to the necessity of more vigor and precise timing.

Nancy Kwan met Bruce Lee when he choreographed the martial arts moves in the film The Wrecking Crew.

Nancy Kwan became close friends with Lee and met his wife and two children.

Nancy Kwan married Hollywood screenwriter David Giler in July 1970 in a civil ceremony in Carson City, Nevada.

That year, Nancy Kwan returned to Hong Kong with her son because her father was sick.

Nancy Kwan initially intended to remain for one year to assist him, but ultimately remained for about seven years.

Nancy Kwan did not stop her work, starring as Dr Sue in the film Wonder Women.

In 1976 Nancy Kwan married Norbert Meisel, an actor, director, screenwriter, and producer.

In 1979, the two returned to the United States because Nancy Kwan wanted him to finish his schooling there.

In 1987, Nancy Kwan co-owned the dim sum restaurant Joss.

In 1995, Nancy Kwan recorded an audiobook for Anchee Min's memoir Red Azalea in what Publishers Weekly called a "coolly understated performance that allows the story's subtleties and unexpected turns to work by themselves".

In 1993, Nancy Kwan played Gussie Yang, a "tough-talking, soft-hearted Hong Kong restaurateur", in the fictional Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.

Nancy Kwan played a pivotal role in the film, a character based on Seattle restaurateur and political leader Ruby Chow who hires Bruce Lee as a dishwasher and gives him the funds to open a martial arts school.

Nancy Kwan called the film "a slice of life about Euro-Asians in Los Angeles, and it's something I know about".

In 1993, Nancy Kwan was asked about whether she was confronted with racism as a leading Asian Hollywood actress in the 1960s.

Nancy Kwan attributed this to both her age and the movie enterprise's aversion to selecting Asians for non-Asian roles.

Nancy Kwan could have capitalized on the trend through a role in the 1993 film The Joy Luck Club.

In November 1993, Nancy Kwan co-starred in the two-character play Arthur and Leila about two siblings who struggle with their Chinese identities.

Nancy Kwan has appeared on television commercials even into the 1990s and appeared in "late night infomercials" as the spokesperson for the cosmetic "Oriental Pearl Cream".

Nancy Kwan gave profits from both the book and a movie she created about him to supporting the study of AIDS and the promotion of AIDS awareness.

Nancy Kwan told The Kansas City Star in 2007 that she did not consider retiring, leads to trouble.

Nancy Kwan appeared in Arthur Dong's 2007 documentary Hollywood Chinese, where other Chinese dignitaries and she discussed the past accomplishments and the impending plight of Chinese people in the film industry.

Nancy Kwan believes that Asians are not cast in enough films and TV shows.

Nancy Kwan wrote an introduction for the 2008 book For Goodness Sake: A Novel of the Afterlife of Suzie Wong written by American author James Clapp using the pen name Sebastian Gerard.

Nancy Kwan serves as a spokeswoman for the Asian American Voters Coalition, a pan-Asian political organization established in 1986 to aid Asian actors.

The Straits Times reported in March 2011 that Nancy Kwan continues to serve as a film screenwriter and executive.