Mori began her film career in silent films in the late 1920s. In Mr. Wu (1927) she was credited as Toshia Ichioka. In Streets of Shanghai (1927), she was credited as Toshiye Ichioka. In The Man Without a Face, she was also credited as Toshiye Ichioka, her birth name. (The film is presumed lost.) Finally, she entered the sound era as Toshia Mori.
Mori played Miss Ling in The Hatchet Man (1932). In the same year, she played another Chinese character, "Butterfly", in Roar of the Dragon, an action-melodrama produced by David O. Selznick. The storyline consisted of a group of Occidentals turning to an alcoholic riverboat captain Chauncey Carson (Richard Dix) for help when they are trapped at a hotel in a Mandarin town under siege.
In 1932, Toshia became the only Asian and non-Caucasian actress to be selected as a WAMPAS Baby Star, an annual list of young and promising film actresses. WAMPAS may have led to the most significant film role of her career, for shortly afterward, she appeared in Frank Capra's film The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), a role that was originally scheduled for Anna May Wong. The story involved the erotically charged relationship between a missionary (Barbara Stanwyck) and a Chinese warlord (Nils Asther). The script also featured a vital character, Mah-Li, a concubine whose scheming throws a spanner into the plots of those around her. Capra and Columbia Pictures, both extremely happy with Mori's work, awarded her third billing. Time's favorable review read: "Stanwyck is satisfactory but the most noteworthy female member of the cast is Toshia Mori, a sloe-eyed Japanese girl…"

Return to Toshia Mori Autograph Profile