page_title: Flower Drum Song (film)
section_title: Casting
hierarchical_section_title: Flower Drum Song (film) / Production / Casting
caption_attribution_description: English: Nancy Kwan on the set of the 1961 film Flower Drum Song
context_page_description: Flower Drum Song is a 1961 American musical film directed by Henry Koster, adapted from the 1958 Broadway musical Flower Drum Song, written by the composer Richard Rodgers and the lyricist/librettist Oscar Hammerstein II, in turn based on the 1957 novel of the same name by the Chinese American author Chin Yang Lee. The film stars Nancy Kwan, James Shigeta, Miyoshi Umeki, Jack Soo, Benson Fong, and Juanita Hall. It was nominated for five Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.
  Flower Drum Song became the first major Hollywood feature film to have a majority Asian cast in a contemporary Asian-American story. It would be the last film to do so for a third of a century, until 1993's The Joy Luck Club. In 2008, Flower Drum Song was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
context_section_description: The film was notable as the first that featured nearly all Asian American cast members (one of the few speaking Caucasian parts being that of a mugger), including dancers, though three of the singing voices were not Asian ones. The contemporaneous paucity of Asian actors notably forced producers to dress Arnold Stang in yellowface as a Chinese cook for an episode of Wagon Train, since "all of Hollywood's Oriental actors were busy making 'Flower Drum Song'". Starring in the movie were Nancy Kwan, James Shigeta, Benson Fong, James Hong, Reiko Sato and the original Broadway cast members Jack Soo, Miyoshi Umeki, and Juanita Hall (an African American actress who previously played the Pacific Islander Bloody Mary in the Broadway and film productions of Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific).
  Anna May Wong had been scheduled to play the part of Madam Liang, but she died in February 1961, before production began. Kwan won the role of Linda Low when she met Ross Hunter, the producer of Flower Drum Song, at a party after he saw her film debut in the 1960 film adaptation of The World of Suzie Wong. Kwan's casting was announced in February 1961.
caption: Nancy Kwan on set.
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