Nancy Kwan

As boys my brother and I had no greater erotic thrill than watching her in movies like “The World of Suzie Wong,” and “Flower Drum Song”–films we did not like except for the vivacity of her performance in both. Often she played girls who were “unhappy,” and had a secret; no man was stronger than her pain. She had baby hair bangs, just “like,” the colored girls we grew up with. But she was Chinese and therefore different. In her movies she was not shy about expressing her anger, and she was not shy about trying to get over on European men. Those men were not like us; therefore Nancy could love us, right? We loved her voice, which was of a piece with her appearance. That is, she did not sound all baby-woman–all simpering lisps–and we especially loved her carriage: the high proud back and petulant ass that jutted out for our visual delectation, but only for a minute before Nancy turned to some other secret, or problem man, or herself. She had her body and she had her soul and one had the sense that she kept the best parts of each for herself, even when she was sharing it with millions of other boy viewers, too. We loved her because we could not have her. Which is one definition of a star.