Free Republic

LOS ANGELES — As a 14-year-old girl, the daughter of immigrants in this city’s Chinatown, Anna May Wong talked her way into her first role in a movie. Over the decades-long career that followed, she rose to become the first Asian American film star in Hollywood. When Wong died in 1961, The New York Times called the actress, known for her large, expressive eyes and flapper-era styles, “one of the most unforgettable figures of Hollywood’s great days.” Now Wong is gaining another coveted role — on the quarter. Part of a new effort that also put writer Maya Angelou and...

Celebrity, high and low, is judged by double standards. We forgive the talented their sins because we appreciate their talents. Sometimes we're hypercritical (and hypocritical) for the very reason they let us down -- when what they say has little, if anything, to do with their talents. The moguls of the old studio system in Hollywood knew what they were doing when they kept the politics, if any, of their stars hidden safely away. We don't really want to know what a good actor like Sean Penn thinks about politics, overlooking his childish anti-American diatribes, because we know his views...

She was considered one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen, but Hedy Lamarr never wanted to be known as just a pretty face. . . . . . She is credited for patenting a technology that is used every day. Hers is a story that is something right out of … well … Hollywood. A Kept Woman Finds Freedom Upon the insistence of her parents, Hedy wed a prominent Austrian munitions tycoon by the name of Fritz Mandl. Mandl took his teenage bride everywhere, including prominent business meetings with his biggest client, the Nazi Party....