Lotus Long

Long was born in New Jersey to a father of Japanese ancestry and a mother of Hawaiian ancestry. She came to Southern California during the 1920s to act in Hollywood films and usually portrayed ethnic Asian female characters in supporting roles. She used the name Lotus Long for stage and film. Because of her adopted surname, people generally assumed that she was of Chinese ancestry, something she used later to avoid incarceration in American internment camps with other persons of Japanese ancestry, both legal permanent residents and American citizens, during World War II.

She appeared in the MGM docudrama Eskimo (1933) as wife of the main character and under the stage name Lotus Long in the 1934 movie The Mysterious Mr. Wong and 1939's Mr. Wong in Chinatown.[1] She also starred alongside Keye Luke in Phantom of Chinatown as Win Len, Dr. Benton's secretary.

She also was credited under the name Karen Sorrell in the movies Flight into Nowhere (1938), starring Jack Holt and Mysterious Mr. Moto (1938), starring Peter Lorre. She was uncredited in the movie The Real Glory (1939), starring Gary Cooper and David Niven.[2]

One of her more infamous roles was Tokyo Rose in Lew Landers' movie Tokyo Rose (1946), which starred Keye Luke, Edwin Luke, Richard Loo, Byron Barr, and Osa Massen.[3]

Long had a writing and producing credit for the film The Tahitian (1956)[4] made with her husband James Knott. The Tahitian was filmed on location with a largely native cast.[5]

In Timothy Tau's short film bio-pic Keye Luke, Lotus Long is portrayed by Mei Melancon.[6]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lotus Long.

• Lotus Long at IMDb
• The Tahitian
• Video Lotus Long monologue on YouTube