Lucille Soong

Though Lucille Soong had a long career in British and American TV and films, she was actually born in Tianjin, China, on August 15, 1938. She moved to Hong Kong at the age of 22, where she caught the eye of British director Lewis Gilbert. This led to her first (uncredited) film role, in Gilbert's 1959 "Ferry to Hong Kong." The next natural step for Soong was a move to London, where besides becoming an actress, she was one of the first Chinese models to work in England. Throughout the '60s, Soong found roles in a long string of British films and TV shows, making appearances in series like "The Avengers" (ITV 1961-69), "The Prisoner" (ITV 1967-68) and "Coronation Street" (ITV 1960- ) and such films as "The Knack And How To Get It" (1965) and "The Brides of Fu Manchu" (1966), even though many of her small film parts continued to be uncredited. In the '90s, Soong began the second chapter of her acting career, making the move to American TV and movies. Her first American roles had actually come in the early '70s, but her role as Popo in the film "The Joy Luck Club" (1993) proved to be a major turning point for her. From the '90s onward, Soong appeared in everything from "Dharma & Greg" (ABC 1997-2002) to "Mission Impossible III" (2006). Ironically, it wasn't until 2015 that she nabbed one of her most substantive recurring roles, playing Grandma Huang in the sitcom "Fresh Off the Boat" (ABC 2015- ).