True Life Tuesday: Esther Eng

Esther Eng was born Ng Kam-he on September 24, 1914 i San Francisco. She was the 4th of 10 children in her family. Her grandparent came to American from Toy Shan County in the Guangdong province of China. Esther was a big fan of Cantonese opera and socialized with may of the singers and actors who performed in the operas. 

When Esther was 19 her father and his business partners created a film production company. She was named a producer and her first film credit was the 1936 film Heartache. She travelled to Hong Kong for the film's premiere along with the movie's lead actress Wai Kim Fong. After the success of her 1937 film National Heroine She stayed in Hong Kong. While there she directed Ten Thousand Lovers and Storm of Envy, both released in 1938. She returned to San Francisco in 1939 where she began distributing Cantonese films to Central and South America. In 1950 Esther stopped making films and entered the restaurant business. Eventually she opened 5 restaurants in Manhattan. In 1961 she earned her final film credit for co-directing Murder in New York Chinatown with Wu Peng. Most of her filmography has been lost other than olden Gate Girl and Murder in New York Chinatown. 

Esther lives as an out lesbian. This did not harm her career because homosexuality was accepted in the Cantonese opera community. She died of cancer on January 25, 1970 at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Her life was memorialized in 2 documentaries. The first was Golden Gate Silver Light in 2013 and Golden Gate Girls in 2014, both my Louisa Wei.