Trivia / Nancy Kwan

• Billing Displacement: Nancy is top-billed in Flower Drum Song, despite playing the third most important character. This is because she was considered a bigger star than Miyoshi Umeki and James Shigeta.
• The Cast Showoff: She had dance training, which she put to use in Flower Drum Song. She also incorporated her dance training into the fight scenes in The Wrecking Crew.
• Fake Nationality:
  • She was only half-Chinese so for a lot of roles where she played Asian characters, she was given mild Yellowface to look more Chinese. In Tamahine and Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N. she plays Polynesian characters.
  • In the British film The Main Attraction she played an Italian.
• Hollywood Hype Machine: She was rocketed to fame with The World of Suzie Wong and Flower Drum Song and named the leading Asian-American actress of the day. Her fame however peaked in 1962 and those are still her best known roles. Like Anna May Wong before her, she had to travel to Europe and Hong Kong to escape getting typecast in stereotypical Asian roles in Hollywood.
• I Am Not Spock: Commented that after 50 film roles, she still got letters from people asking about Suzie Wong. Her father even had to endure various fans calling him 'Mr Wong', to his displeasure.
• Irony as She Is Cast: A class variety. Nancy had a privileged upbringing in Hong Kong, and played the low class Suzie Wong.
• Non-Singing Voice: Flower Drum Song saw her singing dubbed by BJ Baker.
• The Other Marty: France Nuyen, who had played the role of Suzie Wong on stage, had already filmed some scenes for The World of Suzie Wong when she was let go due to her deteriorating mental health (thanks to a torrid relationship with Marlon Brando). Nancy was her understudy and got the part.
• The Red Stapler:
  • Her bob haircut became a hit, and was even named 'The Kwan'.
  • The cheongsam she wore on the cover of Life magazine spawned thousands of replicas and copycats.
• Star-Making Role: The World of Suzie Wong of course made her a sensation in the early 1960s.
• What Could Have Been:
  • She turned down a role in The Joy Luck Club, not liking the script. Specifically there was a Take That! to The World of Suzie Wong, calling it "a horrible, racist film" and they refused to take it out.^note Suzie Wong is an anti-racist film, but Rose's line that the nicey-nice insults by Ted's mother are "straight out of ... The World of Suzie Wong" is right on the money. The snobbish Anglo richos in that picture have the exact same attitude as Ted's mother, or worse.
  • She was considered for the role of Ah Ma in Crazy Rich Asians, as she is related to author Kevin Kwan. She was turned down for looking too young for the part.