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Anna May Wong grew up in her father’s laundry and helped out at the business along with the rest of her siblings. Once her fame as an actress took off, her father built a bungalow in back of the laundry so that she would have a place she could call her own. There she entertained Hollywood actors, artists, and writers over cups of Chinese tea.

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Anna May’s first brush with the movies happened on the streets of Chinatown, where she would worm her way to the front of the crowds gathered to watch the film crews work. This frequent pastime earned her the nickname of the Curious Chinese Child.

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After several years in Europe, Anna May returned to Los Angeles in 1931. By this time, her father was ready to retire, so she moved into more comfortable lodgings at the Park Wilshire Apartments (next door to MacArthur Park, which was then a new development called Westlake Park). Located in one of the city’s toniest neighborhoods, Anna May could live in style but still be close to home—Sam Kee Laundry was merely a 10-minute drive away.

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The Pickford-Fairbanks Studios was where Anna May got her first big break in Douglas Fairbanks’s blockbuster silent film The Thief of Bagdad. Going to work on that set, which doubled as Doug’s playground, must have really been something!

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The Thief of Bagdad premiered in Los Angeles at the Egyptian Theatre in the summer of 1924. Getting to walk down the red carpet at this extravaganza, as flashbulbs clicked, was surely Anna May’s first true taste of the limelight.

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Sid Grauman, one of Hollywood’s best known showmen, had to outdo his last project, the Egyptian Theatre, by building an even grander movie palace. The Chinese Theatre, though it has changed hands several times, is one Hollywood’s most enduring landmarks. And who do you think was there at the groundbreaking ceremony? Anna May Wong. Not only that, but she even drilled the first rivet into the steel tresses that would later support the building.

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Sometimes credited with “sparking Hollywood’s nightlife,” the Montmartre was a place to see and be seen. It doubled as both a cafe, where stars lunched and gossip columnist Louella Parson liked to hold court, and a nightclub where stars and their fans could rub shoulders. Anna May lunched here on occasion according to said gossip columns.

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This legendary hotel has made its way into countless Hollywood biographies. It was “the epitome of glamour in Los Angeles” and frequented by household names like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rudolph Valentino, and Joan Crawford. Anna May sometimes attended parties there, danced at the Cocoanut Grove, or enjoyed a nightcap at a friend’s bungalow.

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Famous Players-Lasky Corporation, or Paramount Pictures, as it later became known, was the closest thing Anna May had to a home studio in Hollywood. Paramount produced many of her films, including some of her most memorable like Shanghai Express, Daughter of Shanghai, and King of Chinatown. She could often be seen walking to work through the studio’s famous gates or dining in the star-laden commissary.

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The Biltmore Bowl, a grand ballroom inside the Biltmore Hotel, was the site of the first Academy Awards in 1929. A total of eight Oscar award ceremonies were held there through the 1930s. Although Anna May was never nominated for an Oscar nor did she attend the ceremony, she was likely keenly aware of Luise Rainer’s win there in 1938 for the lead female role in The Good Earth.

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In the late 1930s, Anna May often presided over dinners at Dragon Den, her friend Eddy See’s restaurant in Chinatown. Hollywood types like Peter Lorre and Walt Disney were regulars, along with old-time friends like James Wong Howe. The basement restaurant’s colorful murals, which were painted onto exposed brick walls by artist friends Tyrus Wong and Benji Okubo, were a fitting backdrop for Anna May’s sparkling repartee.

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Purchased in 1938, this two-lot property in Santa Monica, just a short walk from the beach, was Anna May’s home for nearly 20 years. The original house was updated and remodeled by modernist architect Rudolf Schindler. Inspired by the many moon gates she passed through during her sojourn in China, Anna May incorporated a red octagonal door or moon gate into the garden wall. Thus, she christened the house Moongate.

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Anna May Wong was the first Asian American actress to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame when it was unveiled in 1960. Many fans still pay homage to her there today.

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Anna May is buried with her mother and sister Mary Wong in Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery, which was the first in Los Angeles to inter people of all races and creeds. Hattie McDaniel, Edward L. Park (the first Chinese American to play Charlie Chan on-screen), as well as two directors Anna May worked with—Tod Browning and Marshall Neilan—are also buried there.