In February of 1958 Maria and Lisa Lu were Chinatown princesses appearing at events celebrating the Chinese New Year, which, in this case, was the Year of the Dog.
Los Angeles Evening Mirror News, Los Angeles, California, USA, Feb 18th, 1958
(Unknown Author)
Maria was one of two New Year’s princesses of New Chinatown in 1958, alongside Lisa Lu. Together with Chester Kuan, president of the New Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, they visited Undersheriff Pete Pitchess to wish him a happy new year.
Adam Kennedy (Dion Patrick), Seán McClory (Jack McGivern), Nan Leslie, Keye Luke, John Anderson, Maria Tsien (Mei Soong), Kam Tong, Richard Cutting
Maria McClay as Mei Soong is being placed as a bet during a high stakes poker game.
Dion Patrick (Adam Kennedy) and the vigilantes are investigating human trafficking in San Francisco’s China Town. While making inroads with the community Dion wins Mei Soong, played by Maria, from a dubious Chinese business man.
In the end he manages to return her to her true love, his Chinese guide during his investigation, and, with help from both, takes down the true villain: the white English teacher in a school for Chinese children.
Maria McClay as Mei Soong finds herself in a confusing situation while being kept safe at Dion’s home.
Maria didn’t get to many lines in this role but had plenty of screen time. While there are still plenty of racial stereotypes in play in this show at least it was surprisingly low on Yellow Face and had a comparably high number of non-white actors in Asian roles for its time.
Scenes Featuring Maria
In order to view the video content for this post you must be logged in as a registered user of the site.
A photo with a brief description shows Maria as a guest at the wedding reception of Sarah Ahn Buffum and motion picture and TV writer Ray Buffum at the bride’s father’s, Philip Ahn’s, Moongate Restaurant. The photo was posted with similar short captions in various Newspapers in early November of 1957.
A short article about Maria on the occasion of a one-week vacation in Vancouver in the Fall of 1957. Par for the course for a 1950s newspaper article it mostly concerns itself with her looks but also mentions her role in The King And Iand some modeling work she did in the spring of this year for Jacques Grieffe and Jean Patou. This article appeared in various forms in multiple papers throughout the month of September. It looks like the original article was written by Doug Heal for the Vancouver Province and published in that paper on September 4th of 1957
