Sessue Hayakawa, c. 1930
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ea790236942d591287c73c6e5e55ce19b7372cdfbcc499c9b3d264ec1a15c5ea/SessueHayakawa.png)
About
As you walk around the Portrait Gallery, you may notice a portrait of an elegant Japanese man with a smoldering gaze sitatued towards the top of the exhibit. This is Sessue Hayakawa, the only Asian actor to play the heartthrob in American silent pictures—although anti-miscegenation laws of the era meant that he never ended up with the girl in the end.
Tags: Film, Actor, Exclusion Act, Orientalism