Today (May 24) is the 101st birthday of Jadin Wong, the mostly silent co-star of I Drink Your Blood. She was a pioneer of Asian-American women on stage and screen, so her role in a rank exploitation film–that exploited popular beliefs about the “inscrutable Asian” common at the time is still something of a mystery to me. But her legacy of seven decades in show business lives on in the Jadin Wong Educational Fund, supporting up-and-coming Asian Americans in the arts.
Coincidentally, today is also the 27th anniversary of the death of Wong’s co-star in this film, Richard Bowler, who played “Grandpa” who most notably was dosed with copious amounts of acid and had a whopper of a hangover–and a huge chip on his shoulder–the next day in this flick. Bowler was nearly as long-lived as Wong, and he was 89 when he passed away, but is probably better known for his long Broadway career, 1923-71.
42nd St. Cinema Backstory 