Victor Wong
Victor Wong was a notable Chinese American actor, journalist, and artist born in San Francisco in July 1927. His early life was marked by his family's migration from China and his father's prominence in the local Chinese American community. Wong's educational journey included studying at institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley, and the San Francisco Art Institute, where he pursued various interests including political science, journalism, and painting. He was involved in the San Francisco Beat movement and connected with influential cultural figures of the 1960s, including Jack Kerouac and Ken Kesey.
Wong's career evolved from journalism, where he became one of the first Chinese Americans in broadcast journalism, to acting, where he gained recognition for his character roles in films like "The Joy Luck Club" and "Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart." His performances often reflected a comforting presence, earning him respect and acclaim within the industry. Despite facing personal challenges, including health issues later in life, Wong remained active in his art until his passing in 2001. He is remembered as a significant figure in the Asian American cultural landscape, breaking barriers in television and film during his career.
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Subject Terms
Victor Wong
Actor, entertainer, journalist
- Born: July 31, 1927
- Birthplace: San Francisco, California
- Died: September 12, 2001
- Place of death: Locke, California
From the 1970s to the 1990s, Victor Wong was one of the most visible and versatile Asian American actors in television, theater, and movies, known particularly for his roles in John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987). Wong was a role model and frequent actor for director Wayne Wang. He was also a noted painter, comedian, and journalist.
Birth name: Yee-Keung Victor Wong
Areas of achievement: Acting, entertainment, journalism
Early Life
Victor Wong was born in San Francisco, California, in July 1927 to parents who had emigrated from China. He had a brother named Zeppelin and several sisters. Wong’s father, Sare King Wong, was a respected intellectual in the Chinese American community, and was later considered the unofficial “mayor” of Chinatown. The family moved to the small town of Locke, California, when Victor was a small child, but returned to San Francisco a few years later. As a youth, Wong came down with tuberculosis; the subsequent years spent in a sanitarium made him more introverted. He attended the University of California Berkeley, where he majored in political science and journalism, the University of Chicago, where he studied theology, and the San Francisco Art Institute, where he studied painting under Mark Rothko. While in Chicago, he was also an early member of the Second City comedy troupe.
Life’s Work
Victor Wong was a participant in San Francisco’s thriving Beat movement, befriending such figures as writer Jack Kerouac, who later wrote about Wong in the character of Arthur Ma in the novel Big Sur (1962). Wong was also a member of author Ken Kesey’s so-called Merry Pranksters, a loose confederation that included writer Neal Cassady and the rock group the Grateful Dead, among others. The group lived communally up and down the West Coast and was closely associated with the drug culture of the 1960s. Wong spent some time as an abstract painter, befriending the poet and painter Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Among the first Chinese Americans to enter into broadcast journalism, Wong worked on the daily program Newsroom on his hometown public television station KQED from 1968 to 1974, specializing in photojournalism essays. After an attack of Bell’s palsy that caused one of his eyelids to permanently droop, Wong left television and began acting, first in local theater.
Wong later appeared on the New York stage and had a recurring role in the daytime drama Search for Tomorrow. By that time he had become a well-known character actor and, already in his late fifties, he made his television movie debut in 1983’s Nightsongs. He played his first memorable film role in 1985 in Wayne Wang’s Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart; he was to appear in four films for Wang. Many other roles followed in such motion pictures as Eat a Bowl of Tea (1989), The Joy Luck Club (1993), The Golden Child (1986), The Last Emperor (1987), Shanghai Surprise (1986), and Seven Years in Tibet (1997). Wong also appeared prominently in 3 Ninjas (1992) and its three sequels. He also worked in many well-known made-for-television movies. He was quoted as saying, “If I can’t act, I go crazy. I need it every day.”
In 1998, Wong retired from acting after suffering two strokes. He struggled with many health issues from that time on. Nonetheless, he continued to be active with his artwork, producing many of his pieces digitally. He died of a heart attack at the age of seventy-four, on the day after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It was believed that Wong suffered great anxiety for the safety of his two sons, who were living in New York City at the time. Wong was married four times; he had two daughters and three sons, one of whom was killed in a street attack in 1986, the tragedy that triggered his first stroke.
Significance
In the 1960s, Victor Wong was one of the few Asian Americans working in television to appear on camera. He was honored for his journalistic work by the Chinese Historical Society of America in 1999. While he was often typecast in movies and television programs with Asian themes, Wong proved to be a well-respected performer, and one of the most sought-after Asian American actors of his time. He projected a reassuring, grandfatherly persona to which moviegoers seemed to respond. Prominent playwright David Henry Hwang described Wong’s acting as “electric.” Wong was showcased in the award-winning 1997 documentary My America . . . or Honk If You Love Buddha,which considered the Asian American experience.
Bibliography
Chang, Lia. “Remembering Our Merry Prankster.” Asian Week. Asian Week, 5–11 Oct. 2001. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. Offers an extensive article and obituary on the life and work of Victor Wong.
Kerouac, Jack. Big Sur. 1962. New York: Penguin, 1992. Print. Kerouac’s novel includes the character of Arthur Ma, a fictionalized version of Wong, who was a friend of the author.
Pulley, Michael. “The Last Days of Victor Wong.” Sacramento News and Review. Chico Community Publishing, 19 Sept. 2001. Web. 21 Mar. 2012. An informative obituary about Wong, chronicling the different phases of his career.