Why haven’t we heard of early LGBTQ+ icon Esther Eng, Hollywood’s first Chinese female filmmaker?
She is remembered as America’s first Chinese female film writer, director and producer, a successful entrepreneur and open lesbian – why haven’t we heard about her until now?
A Chinese-American woman who wrote, directed and produced more than 10 films. A proud, open lesbian, accepted by her friends and family. Going by that description alone, you might think that we’re talking about some kind of trailblazer yet to materialise in the public consciousness. But what if we told you this person had already lived a full life and died before colour TV became mainstream?
I just went ahead and I wasn’t afraid of anything
Esther Eng was born in San Francisco in 1919, and in 1937 made history when she was hired by a Hong Kong studio to direct her first feature movie called National Heroine, a film about women joining the army to help protect the country. Later making at least 10 films overlapping the second world war, all of Eng’s works featured strong, independent women.
Most notably her film Golden Gate Girl (1941), a film made in San Francisco about a woman who defies her family, falls in love and then eventually gets pregnant, received a positive review from industry tome Variety.
However, Golden Gate Girl was never widely distributed and, in 1950, Eng went into the restaurant business. It seems she would succeed in all endeavours she put her mind to as she ended up opening a string of establishments in Manhattan.
In her last foray in the filmmaking business, Eng was the first woman to make an internationally collaborative film called Murder in New York Chinatown in 1961. Wu Peng directed the Hong Kong scenes while Eng sat in the chair for the New York scenes.