The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong

The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong is an American television series which aired on the now defunct DuMont Television Network. It starred Chinese American silent film and talkie star Anna May Wong (birth name Wong Liu-tsong) who played a detective in a role written specifically for her. The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong was the first U.S. television series starring an Asian-American series lead.[1]

The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong
GenreMystery
StarringAnna May Wong
Country of originUnited States
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes10
Production
Running time30 minutes
Release
Original networkDuMont
Original releaseAugust 27 (1951-08-27) –
November 21, 1951 (1951-11-21)

Broadcast history

Wong's character was a dealer in Chinese art whose career involved her in detective work and international intrigue.[2] The ten half-hour episodes aired during prime time, on Wednesdays at 9:00p.m. ET.[3] Though there were plans for a second season, DuMont canceled the show in 1952. No copies of the show or its scripts are known to exist.[4]

Preservation status

Like most DuMont programs, no known episodes of The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong exist today, the majority of the network's footage having been dumped into the Hudson River upon closure. Although a few kinescope episodes of various DuMont series survive at Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications, New York's Paley Center for Media, and the UCLA Film and Television Archive, there are no copies of Madame Liu-Tsong in these archives.[5]

In 1996, early television actress Edie Adams testified at a hearing in front of a panel of the Library of Congress on the preservation of American television and video. Adams stated that, by the 1970s, little value was given to the DuMont film archive, and that all the remaining kinescopes of DuMont series were loaded into three trucks and dumped into Upper New York Bay.[6]

Episode list
# Title[7] Aired
1. "The Egyptian Idols" August 27, 1951
2. "The Golden Women" September 3, 1951
3. "The Spreading Oak" September 10, 1951
4. "The Man with a Thousand Eyes" September 17, 1951
5. "Burning Sands" September 24, 1951
6. "Shadow of the Sun God" October 1, 1951
7. "The Tinder Box" October 31, 1951
8. "The House of Quiet Dignity" November 7, 1951
9. "Boomerang" November 14, 1951
10. "The Face of Evil" November 21, 1951

See also

References
  1. "Film reveals real-life struggles of an onscreen 'Dragon Lady' Archived 2011-07-20 at the Wayback Machine." January 3, 2008. Retrieved: January 27, 2010.
  2. Camhi, Leslie. "FILM; A Dragon Lady and a Quiet Cultural Warrior". The New York Times, January 11, 2004.
  3. Chan, Anthony B. Perpetually Cool: The Many Lives of Anna May Wong (1905–1961), p 80. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8108-4789-2.
  4. Hodges, Graham Russell. Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend, pp. 216–217. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. ISBN 0-312-29319-4.
  5. Ingram, C. (2002). "The DuMont Television Network Historical Web Site" Archived 2015-08-17 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved June 7, 2008.
  6. Adams, Edie (March 1996). "Television/Video Preservation Study: Los Angeles Public Hearing". National Film Preservation Board. Library of Congress. Retrieved 2023-08-31.
  7. Episode list from Hodges, Graham Russell. Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend. Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. ISBN 0-312-29319-4. P. 216.

Bibliography
  • David Weinstein, The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004) ISBN 1-59213-245-6
  • Alex McNeil, Total Television, Fourth edition (New York: Penguin Books, 1980) ISBN 0-14-024916-8
  • Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, Third edition (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964) ISBN 0-345-31864-1
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