| Notes |
● Rose Quong was one of Australia’s first great actors, acclaimed overseas yet not enjoying the enduring recognition here of Melba, Helpmann, Flynn and other contemporaries in the 20th century. She was a Chinese-Australian living during the years of the White Australia policy.
● Rose left Australia in 1924 aged 44 for London. In the amateur Melbourne Repertory Theatre in Melbourne her race had not been an issue although The Age in 1907 reporting on one of her successful concerts noted that ‘an admixture of Chinese with European blood may sometimes be productive of excellent results’.
● In London, she was awarded a scholarship to study drama with progressive actor/director Rosa Filippi. But now Rose faced a new form of racism—doors were closed to her when she auditioned for Shakespearean roles. Her Chinese heritage now defined her.
● Just a year after arriving in London, she was in demand for private receptions and recited and commented on Chinese poetry for the BBC. Her role in 1929 in The Circle of Chalk, a play based on Chinese legend, with Laurence Olivier she was critically acclaimed but as a Chinese actress with no mention that she was Australian.
● Encouraged to use her Chinese heritage to her advantage, Rose overcame her initial reluctance to specialise as an Oriental actress and reciter. She adopted a Chinese-style wardrobe and hairstyle and became an avid student of Chinese culture, philosophy and literature and fluent in Mandarin.
● In the 1930s, she was lecturing to prestigious groups in England, Ireland and the USA, launched her own ‘Circle’ to lecture on Chinese themes, made her only visit to China (in 1936) and became a welcome guest at the Chinese Embassy in London.
● In 1939, Rose moved to the USA where she lived the rest of her life.
● She was now a respected lecturer and writer, publishing Chinese Wit, Wisdom and Written Characters (1944) and translating Chinese Ghost and Love Stories (1946).
● She continued to perform on stage, in one-woman shows and appearing at age 70 in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical Flower Drum Song in 1958–1959 on Broadway. She was so well known in her 90s in the USA that Rose was cast as herself in 1971 as an aged Chinese astrologer in a film, Eliza’s Horoscope with Tommy Lee Jones (watch it on YouTube), shortly before her death in 1972.
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