Gloria Suie Chin (; November 10, 1925 – October 16, 2016), known professionally as Maylia Fong, was an American

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a Character (arts), character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek ...

Career

Fong was cast in her first film as the character Ming Ling in the 1947 romantic film ''Singapore'', also starring

Fred MacMurray Frederick Martin MacMurray (August 30, 1908 – November 5, 1991) was an American actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films and a successful television series, in a career that spanned nearly a half-century. His career as a major film le ...

, after she was spotted by the wife of producer

Sidney Buchman Sidney Robert Buchman (March 27, 1902 – August 23, 1975) was an American screenwriter and film producer who worked on about 40 films from the late 1920s to the early 1970s. He received four Oscar nominations and won once for Best Screenplay ...

in a

Paramount Paramount (from the word ''paramount'' meaning "above all others") may refer to: Entertainment and music companies * Paramount Global, also known simply as Paramount, an American mass media company formerly known as ViacomCBS. The following busin ...

canteen while visiting her sister in California. After her successful reception in ''Singapore'', Fong portrayed a Chinese orphan in ''

To the Ends of the Earth ''To the Ends of the Earth'' is the title given to a trilogy of nautical, relational novels—''Rites of Passage'' (1980), ''Close Quarters'' (1987), and ''Fire Down Below'' (1989)—by British author William Golding. Set on a former British ...

'' in 1948 starring

Dick Powell Richard Ewing Powell (November 14, 1904 – January 2, 1963) was an American actor, musician, producer, director, and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility, and successfully transformed into ...

and

Signe Hasso Signe Eleonora Cecilia Hasso (''née'' Larsson; 15 August 1915 – 7 June 2002) was a Swedish actress, writer, and composer. Biography Hasso was born in the Kungsholmen parish of Stockholm, Sweden in 1915. Her father and grandfather died when sh ...

. Fong then appeared in '' Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture'' (1949), '' Chinatown at Midnight'' (1949), ''

Call Me Mister ''Call Me Mister'' is a revue with sketches by Arnold Auerbach and words and music by Harold Rome. The title refers to troops who are happily returning to civilian life and no longer want to be addressed by their military ranks. The Broadway pr ...

'' (1951) and ''Return to Paradise'' (1953). She was one of the few Asian-American actresses working in Hollywood at the time. She was referred to as the “first Chinese starlet since

Anna May Wong Wong Liu Tsong (January 3, 1905 – February 3, 1961), known professionally as Anna May Wong, was an American actress, considered the first Chinese-American movie star in Hollywood, as well as the first Chinese-American actress to gain intern ...

” by Paramount Pictures official studio publicity.

Family life

Fong was born in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

. In 1947, while visiting her sister in Los Angeles she met her future husband, Benson Fong. The pair wanted to get married, but they needed a steady income, so they started a chain of restaurants called Ah Fong (亞方). After her last film in 1953, ''Return to Paradise'', Fong retired from acting to focus on her family. She had five children with her husband Benson. Their names are Cynthia Fong (b. 1948), Preston Oden Fong (b. February 1950), Lori Fong (b. 1951), Pamela Fong (b. 1953), and Lisa Fong (b. 1957). Three of her five children (Pamela, Kwong, and Lisa) are also actors. Fong also had nine grandchildren at the time of her death in 2016.

Entrepreneurship

Fong and her husband successfully ran a chain of Chinese restaurants in

Los Angeles County Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, and sometimes abbreviated as L.A. County, is the most populous county in the United States and in the U.S. state of California, with 9,861,224 residents estimated as of 2022. It is the ...

called Ah Fong. In 1949, they had saved up enough money to open their first restaurant location in

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

, California, on Vine Street. By 1971, the chain had locations in Hollywood,

Anaheim Anaheim ( ) is a city in northern Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, the city had a population of 346,824, making it the most populous city in Orange County, the 10th-most p ...

, Encino, Westwood and

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Bev ...

. In 1984, the restaurant received a favorable recommendation in the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' as a place for Mother's Day lunch. She and her husband stopped managing the chain in 1985, shortly before her husband's death in 1987. In 1987, only one location remained in

and was being managed by a relative.

Death

Fong died in her sleep at her home in

Costa Mesa, California Costa Mesa (; Spanish for "Table Coast") is a city in Orange County, California. Since its incorporation in 1953, the city has grown from a semi-rural farming community of 16,840 to an urban area including part of the South Coast Plaza–John Wa ...

, on October 16, 2016. She was survived by her five children and nine grandchildren. Per her last wishes, she was

cremated Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning. Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India and Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre i ...

and her ashes scattered at sea.

Notes

References

External links

* {{authority control 1925 births 2016 deaths 20th-century American actresses Actresses from Detroit American actresses of Chinese descent American women restaurateurs American restaurateurs Paramount Pictures contract players American film actresses 20th-century American businesswomen 20th-century American businesspeople