dieselpunkflimflam:

vintageeveryday:

Sessue Hayakawa: One of the first male sex symbols of Hollywood.

Sessue Hayakawa: dapper (and handsome) doesn’t even begin to cover it.

Long before the hunky Henry Golding established himself as a Hollywood mainstay,
a Japanese actor by the name of Sessue Hayakawa carved out an
improbable career as one of the biggest stars of the silent film era, not least due to his “broodingly handsome” good looks.

In
an industry that has, until very recently, regressed dramatically in
its depiction of Asian men, Hayakawa’s stardom seems ever the more
extraordinary in hindsight.

…

“It caused a sensation,” Stephen Gong, executive director of San Francisco’s Center for Asian-American Media, told NJ.com. “The
idea of the rape fantasy, forbidden fruit, all those taboos of race and
sex — it made him a movie star. And his most rabid fan base was white
women.”

…

[source]