Nancy Kwan worried ‘what will the Asians think’ before accepting ‘Flower Drum Song’ role

Flower Drum Song, the 1961 big-screen adaptation of the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein, helped transform its young lead actress, Nancy Kwan, into a Hollywood star. But as she reveals in her new memoir, The World of Nancy Kwan, she had one big reservation about her free-spirited role.

Kwan writes that she hadn’t heard of the stage musical until the producer of its film adaptation, Ross Hunter, asked her to star. The Svengali behind lavish, hit productions like Pillow Talk and Imitation of Life told Kwan she was “perfect” for the film’s central showgirl character, and when Kwan learned more, she wholeheartedly agreed.

“She loved to dance (just like me). She was independent and outspoken (also just like me!). She had an active fantasy life and was intelligent, playful, and liked to have fun. And as the Rodgers and Hammerstein hit song said, she enjoyed being a girl,” Kwan writes.

But still, one concern held her back from immediately signing on.

Flower Drum Song centers on the romantic entanglement between Mei Li (Miyoshi Umeki), a young woman from a traditional Chinese family who immigrates to San Francisco to meet Sammy Fong (Jack Soo), a smooth-talking nightclub owner to whom she’s been promised an arranged marriage, but who only has eyes for his free- and fast-living star performer, Linda Low (Kwan), who herself has eyes for the handsome bachelor Wang Ta (James Shigeta).

The film positions Mei Li and Linda as opposites — regressive and modern, reserved and fearless, politely chaste and sexually liberated. To young audiences, the characters represented a salient generational divide between the traditional culture of the home country and the fast-evolving, integrated cultures flourishing in Chinatowns across America.

The daughter of a Cantonese architect and British model who emigrated from Hong Kong to England in her teens, Kwan could relate to Linda. But she feared the freewheeling character might alienate or even offend some viewers. “Maybe she was a little bold,” Kwan writes, “and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God! What will the Asians think of this?'”

Kwan eventually signed onto the film, reasoning that her character’s ability to potentially push buttons was “the best thing about Linda — she wasn’t stereotypically Asian. She was just the opposite, a modern girl who could have been of any nationality.”

Flower Drum Song made history in becoming the first major production from a Hollywood studio featuring a predominantly Asian cast. The film also featured Benson Fong, star of several Charlie Chan films, and James Hong, the prolific character actor who memorably appeared in 2021’s Everything Everywhere All at Once. Flower Drum Song was eventually nominated for five Academy Awards.

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Even with only two years of experience under her belt, Kwan understood how important Flower Drum Song would be for actors of Asian descent.

“When I arrived in Hollywood, only two talent agents represented Asian clients, and most of their work consisted of finding extras for crowd scenes,” she writes, adding that when Asian actors were cast in name parts, it was often “as Fu Manchu villains, hyper-sexualized Dragon Ladies, and comic buffoons.”

Kwan reflected, “As I watched the film at the premiere, I realized Flower Drum Song had a cultural, social, and psychological significance extending far beyond employment opportunities in Hollywood because it shattered so many stereotypes…. Instead of being demonized, marginalized, or portrayed as the ‘other,’ our characters were attractive, appealing, affluent.”

Still, it would be decades before another film with a predominantly Asian cast was given the green light in Hollywood — that is, outside of war films that featured Asian actors in non-speaking roles. Wayne Wang‘s 1982 film Chan Is Missing would be the first Asian American independent theatrical film made in the United States. The filmmaker is perhaps best known for his 1993 friendship drama The Joy Luck Club, which was a studio-produced film based on the novel by Amy Tan that experienced modest success at the box office. Most recently, Jon M. Chu‘s Crazy Rich Asians made history by becoming the highest-grossing romantic comedy of the 2010s. In a full-circle moment, Kwan shares a personal connection with the latter film; she is the cousin of Kevin Kwan, the author of the bestselling novel from which it’s adapted.

The World of Nancy Kwan is available in stores now.