Chinese Actress May Make Pictures In England

Waikato Independent, Volume XLV, Issue 6282, 26 August 1949, Page 2

Chinese Actress May Make Pictures In England

A tall, slim,, Shanghai-born beauty may become Anna May Wong No. 2. She is Hong Kong's tip for the girl likely to be talent-spotted by producerdirector Otto Preminger when he goesthere in September to make "Transit Hong Kong," with Richard Wildmarks and Micheline Presle. Preminger will have no easy task, for to bo an actress in China is considered "not quite nice." An exception is Li Li-hwa, who ranks as star No. 1 in her own country. Translated, her Christian name Li-hwa means Beautiful Flower. She had her first film part at 16, "the lead part," and sho' has always played the lead since. For four pictures a rear Mr T. Y. Lee, Hong Kong business man who i 3 China's Arthur Rank, pays her £IO,OOO a year. But Beautiful Flower refuses to kiss or make love on the screen. Though she has a lovely figure (bust 32 in, waist 23in, hips 33in) Chinese audiences have seldom glimpsed her shapely legs. "We do not believe in that," she says. Beautiful Flower lives in a modest four-room flat in Hong Kong, with her husband and 3-yeai*-old baby girl. But it is he r ambition to make pictures in England, because she thinks British firmfc superior to American so she may hn tempted by an Anna May Wong No. 2 offer-