Early life Kwan was born in
Hong Kong on May 19, 1939, and grew up in
Kowloon Tong district. Kwan's father was Kwan Wing-hong, a
Cantonese architect and her mother was Marquita Scott, a
White British model of English and Scottish ancestry. Kwan Wing-hong was the son of lawyer Kwan King-sun and Juliann Loke Yuen-ying, daughter of business executive
Loke Yew. He attended
Cambridge University and met Scott in London. The two married and moved to Hong Kong, where Wing-hong became a prominent architect. Nancy has an older brother, Ka-keung. In 1941, Kwan's parents divorced when she was two years old. At Christmas 1941, in fear of the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong during World War II, Wing Hong, in the guise of a
coolie, escaped from Hong Kong to North China with his two children, whom he hid in
wicker baskets. Her father and stepmother raised her, in addition to her brother and five half-brothers and half-sisters. – Nancy Kwan Except during World War II, Kwan had a comfortable early life. Cared for by an
amah (阿嬤), a woman who looks after children, Kwan owned a pony and spent her summers in resorts in
Borneo, Macao, and Japan. In her youth, she was called "Ka-shen". She wrote in 1960 that as an eight-year-old, her
fortune-teller "predicted travel, fame, and fortune for me". Kwan attended the Catholic
Maryknoll Convent School until she was 13 years old, either at no cost or at a reduced rate, that her brother Ka-keung was then attending.
Early career Stage producer
Ray Stark posted an advertisement in the
Hong Kong Tiger Standard (later renamed
The Standard) regarding auditions for the character Suzie Wong for a play. The ad asked applicants to present their pictures, résumés, and proportions. After auditioning for Stark, she was asked to screen test to play a character in the then-upcoming film
The World of Suzie Wong. she travelled to the United States, where she attended acting school in Hollywood a
chaperoned
dormitory with other apprentices actresses. with Stark's
Seven Arts Productions During the filming, Kwan's only trouble was a lingerie scene. Robert Lomax, as played by Holden, tears off her Western dress and says, "Wear your own kind of clothing! Don't try to copy some European girl!" Director Richard Quine was displeased with Kwan's underclothes: She wore a full-slip rather than a half-slip and bra. Finding the attire too modest and unrealistic, he asked Stark to talk to Kwan. Stark discovered Kwan taking refuge in her dressing room, sobbing hysterically . He warned her, "Nancy, wear the half-slip and bra or you're off the picture. France Nuyen is no longer in it, remember? If you're difficult you'll be off it too. All we want to do is make you the best actress possible." Kwan bashfully returned to the set after lunch having made the requested wardrobe changes and acting as if the events of the morning's shoot had never happened. They plucked her eyebrows and sketched a line across her forehead. Following
The World of Suzie Wong, Kwan was totally unprepared for fame. While she was purchasing fabric in a store on
Nathan Road, she found people staring at her from the window. Wondering what they were staring at, it suddenly struck her that she was the focus of attention. The scene of Kwan, in repose on a
davenport and adorned in a dazzling
cheongsam, while showing a "deliciously decadent flash of thigh", became an iconic image. the cheongsam in the portrait spawned thousands of copycat promotional projects. Comparing
Suzie Wong and
Flower Drum Song, she found the latter much harder because the girl she played was "more go-getter". Her prior ballet education provided a strong foundation for her role in
Flower Drum Song, where she had much space to dance. After starring in
The World of Suzie Wong and
Flower Drum Song, Kwan experienced a meteoric rise in fame. Scholar Jennifer Leah Chan of
New York University chronicled the media attention Kwan received after starring in two Hollywood films, writing that Kwan's fame peaked in 1962. In addition to being featured on the cover of
Life magazine, Kwan was the subject of a 1962 article in ''
McCall's'', entitled "The China Doll that Men Like". As a Hollywood icon, Kwan lived in a house atop
Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles. She drove a white British sports car and danced to Latin music. She enjoyed listening to
Johnny Mathis records and reading
Chinese history books. Her
bob cut in the film drew widespread media attention for the "severe geometry of her new hairstyle". Sassoon's signature bob became known as "the Kwan cut", "the Kwan bob", or just "the Kwan"; photographs of Kwan's new hairstyle appeared in both the
American and
British editions of
Vogue. due to the cultural nature of 1960s America. Ann Lloyd and Graham Fuller wrote in their book ''The Illustrated Who's Who of the Cinema'': "Her Eurasian beauty and impish sense of humor could not sustain her stardom". Her later films were more varied, In December 1963, Pock was constructing a
luxury hotel in the Tyrolean
Alps. During Christmas of that year, Nancy Kwan visited that location and was able to participate in several pre-
1964 Winter Olympics events despite being busy with work. Her contract with film production company Seven Arts led her to travel around the world to film movies. She found the separation from her son, Bernie, who was not yet a year old, difficult. She said, "He's coming into a time when he's beginning to assert his personality." Fair-skinned and blue-eyed, Bernie more strongly resembled his father. In
Fate Is the Hunter (1964), her seventh film, Kwan played an
ichthyologist. It was her first role as a Eurasian character. As part of Kwan's role in the film, she fought
Sharon Tate's character by throwing a
flying kick. Her martial arts move was based not on karate training, but on her background in dance. Author Darrell Y. Hamamoto noted that this "ironically" tweaked Kwan's "dragon-lady role" number by notably replacing
Kung Fu with Western dance moves. She married Hollywood screenwriter
David Giler in July 1970 in a
civil ceremony in
Carson City, Nevada. The marriage was Kwan's second and Giler's first. They divorced in 1971. That year, Kwan returned to Hong Kong with her son because her father was sick. She initially intended to remain for one year to assist him, but ultimately remained for about seven years. She did not stop working, starring as Dr. Sue in the film
Wonder Women (1973). While in Hong Kong, Kwan founded a production company, where she played characters in the television series
Fantasy Island,
Knots Landing and
Trapper John, M.D.. Like her first husband Peter Pock, as well as her former fiancé Maximilian Schell, Meisel was Austrian. "I have my Austrian karma," she said in a 2021 interview. "I think it's lifetime." In a 1993 interview with the
St. Petersburg Times, Kwan remarked that her son Bernie was frequently called a "blond, blue-eyed Chinese" because he could speak the language fluently. In 1979, the two returned to the United States because Kwan wanted him to finish his schooling there. Bernie was an actor, a martial artist, and a
stunt performer. Bates said their stunt was the "highest 'double drop' ever attempted". Kwan has sporadically recorded
audiobooks. In 2011, she recorded an audiobook for the 1989 memoir
When Heaven and Earth Changed Places by
Le Ly Hayslip with Jay Wurts. The
San Francisco Chronicles Patricia Holt praised Kwan's intonation in her delivery, writing that "Kwan's faint Asian accent and careful pronunciation of Vietnamese words make Hayslip's weaving of her past and present lives a riveting experience". In 1993, Kwan played Gussie Yang, a "tough-talking, soft-hearted Hong Kong restaurateur", in the fictional
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. a character based on Seattle restaurateur and political leader
Ruby Chow In November 1993, Kwan co-starred in the two-character play
Arthur and Leila about two siblings who struggle with their Chinese identities. It debuted in the Bay Front Theater in
Fort Mason, San Francisco, and moved to Los Angeles two weeks later. In 1994, an article in the
South China Morning Post said that she preserved her "dancer's figure" through the Chinese martial art
tai chi and frequent dance sessions. In 1996, when he was 33, Kwan's son, Bernie, died after contracting AIDS from a girlfriend Kwan had advised him to avoid. and his wife
Chaz Hammel-Smith gave the thumbs up to Nancy Kwan at the
Hawaii International Film Festival on October 20, 2010.Nancy Kwan has appeared on television commercials into the 1990s and appeared in commercials for the cosmetic "Oriental Pearl Cream". Kwan has been involved in philanthropy for AIDS awareness. In 1997, she published
A Celebration of Life – Memories of My Son, a book about her son who died after being infected with HIV. She contributed the profits from both the book and a movie she made about him to support the study of AIDS and the promotion of AIDS awareness. Kwan told
The Kansas City Star in 2007 that she had not considered retiring, saying that it leads to trouble. Retirees, she professed, frequently find themselves with nothing to do because they have not readied themselves for it. Kwan said, "I hope I'm working until the day I die. If work is a pleasure, why not?" Kwan appeared in
Arthur Dong's 2007 documentary
Hollywood Chinese, where she joined other Chinese luminaries in discussing past accomplishments and future prospects for people of Chinese descent in the movie industry. Kwan and her husband Norbert Meisel write and direct films about Asian-Americans. Kwan believes that Asians are not depicted in enough films and TV shows. She and her husband have resolved to create their own scripts and films about Asian characters. In
Sunshine, Rachel is supported by Kwan, the manager of a jazz club, who knows a secret about her. Kwan serves as a spokeswoman for the Asian American Voters Coalition, ==Filmography==