Toshia Mori

American actress (1912 1995)

Toshia Mori (としあ もり) was an American actress who had a brief Hollywood film career during the late 1920s and 1930s. Born as Toshiye Ichioka (としえ いちおか) in Kyoto, Mori moved to the United States when she was 10.

Mori began her film career in silent films in the late 1920s. In Mr. Wu (1927) she was credited as Toshia Ichioka. In Streets of Shanghai (1927), she was credited as Toshiye Ichioka. In The Man Without a Face, she was also credited as Toshiye Ichioka, her birth name. (The film is presumed lost.) Finally, she entered the sound era as Toshia Mori. Mori played Miss Ling in The Hatchet Man (1932). In the same year, she played another Chinese character, "Butterfly", in Roar of the Dragon, an action melodrama produced by David O. Selznick. The storyline consisted of a group of Occidentals turning to an alcoholic riverboat captain Chauncey Carson (Richard Dix) for help when they are trapped at a hotel in a Mandarin town under siege. In 1932, Toshia became the only actress of Asian descent and person of color to be selected as a WAMPAS Baby Star, an annual list of young and promising film actresses. WAMPAS may have led to the most significant film role of her career, for shortly afterward, she appeared in Frank Capra's film The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), a role that was originally scheduled for Anna May Wong. The story involved the erotically charged relationship between a missionary (Barbara Stanwyck) and a Chinese warlord (Nils Asther). The script also featured a vital character, Mah Li, a concubine whose scheming throws a spanner into the plots of those around her. Capra and Columbia Pictures, both extremely happy with Mori's work, awarded her third billing. Time's favorable review read: "Stanwyck is satisfactory but the most noteworthy female member of the cast is Toshia Mori, a sloe eyed Japanese girl "

Mori returned to minor characters in her subsequent films. In The Painted Veil (1934), starring Greta Garbo, she materializes as the centerpiece of "The Moon Festival" sequence. In Chinatown Squad (1935) she played "Wanda". She appeared in Charlie Chan at the Circus in 1936, and in Charlie Chan on Broadway (1937), Lee (Keye Luke) becomes involved with Ling Tse (Toshia Mori), an employee of the Hottentot Club.

In 1930, Mori married Allen Jung, a Chinese American actor from San Francisco. After her film career ended, Mori worked as a researcher for Robert Ripley on his short films, Ripley's Believe It or Not. She died in The Bronx, New York, aged 83. Her ashes were scattered at sea.