B.D. Wong Saluted by GLAAD: Actor’s memoir tells of partner, twins and tragedy
May 30, 2003
Actor and recent author B.D. Wong will be honored at the 14th Annual GLAAD Media Awards Ceremony May 31 at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) will present Wong with the Davidson/Valenti Award, annually earmarked to an openly lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender individual who has made a significant difference in promoting equal rights for his or her community.
Wong will return to his old roots to receive this award from actress Rita Moreno. In a special interview with AsianWeek, Wong said, “This award is very special to me as I have long been an admirer of this organization and because it comes at a new stage in my life. This adds a vote of confidence to me during the release of my new book, Following Foo, which brings into the open my personal lifestyle.”
B.D. Wong, who has been seen on movie and television screens recently in such shows as NBC’s Law and Order: SVU and The Salton Sea, and on stage in award-winning M. Butterfly, has recently joined the authors’ ranks with the publishing of his memoir concerning the birth of his twin sons by a surrogate mother, the tragic loss at birth of the older one, and the accompanying heartbreak, hair-raising, hilarious and ultimately exhilarating experiences he and partner Richie Jackson lived through in those three harrowing months.
In Following Foo — the electronic adventures of the Chestnut Man, (Harper Entertainment, Publication: June 2003), Wong chronicles the tragedies and triumphs following the twin boys’ premature birth, and the three-month stay in intensive care for Jackson Foo, their surviving baby. The story is told based on detailed and real-time e-mails Wong sent to the couple’s family and friends during this emotional time.
Wong explained, “This book is a very personal thing for me as it was my speaking out and telling openly about Richie and our lives together. This used to be rather uncomfortable for me, but now it feels right and I truly like myself better. I thought long and hard about telling this story about our lives and Foo entering it, but I came to feel the story needed to be told.”
The book, Wong’s first, is told through theatrical e-mail correspondence Wong initiated with nearly a thousand friends, family, loved ones (and even “forwarded strangers”) after the birth of his sons, which brought the family together inside an intensive care unit at a teaching hospital in San Francisco.
“The e-mails were like therapy for me in my desperate attempts to find humor in this terrifying situation,” Wong explained. “When our three-month ordeal was over and we brought Foo home, I had time to look over all the material I had written … as well as the many splendored responses from our wonderful support system.”
Wong said the responses evolved into a book of his “own, personal, odd definition of how it feels to be human. This experience seemed to show me life is full of undeniable, inevitable pain and suffering to balance the awe and joy it provides. It shows that life is also full of choices.”
The book tells a unique and memorable story with an unforgettable cast of real-life characters, a lot of drama, suspense, comedy and a happy Hollywood ending. Wong said, “Foo is now three, and acts just like the brave survivor he was at birth. He rarely cries, even when falling or hurt, and seems a happy no-nonsense individual filled with determination, just like I describe him in his fight for survival following his harrowing birth.”
Known worldwide as the multitalented Broadway, film and television star, B.D. Wong has challenged the Asian Pacific American stereotype with stellar performances, ranging from the deeply emotional to hilarious. He has appeared in the critically acclaimed play M. Butterfly, movies (Father of the Bride I and II, Jurassic Park and Mulan) and on television (Law and Order: SVU and HBO’s Oz). When Wong made his Broadway debut in M. Butterfly, his work earned him the Outer Critic’s Circle Award, Theatre World Award, Drama Desk Award, Clarence Derwent Award and the coveted Antoinette Perry (Tony) Award. No other actor has ever won all five of these awards for one role in a Broadway play.
Reminiscing about his life as an actor, Wong feels that living day-to-day in the trenches of a challenging career as an actor (in an industry fraught with race-based rejection) has forced him to empower himself and his own self-esteem. It has also helped him to articulate issues of racial self-image, APA parental pressure and the “model minority myth.” He enjoys traveling to colleges, universities and high schools to share his experiences and points of view.
He says, “Coming home to San Francisco to receive the GLAAD award will be fun as all my family is there. My parents, Bill and Roberta Wong, have always been supportive of what I wanted to do and become, and I credit them with whatever successes I have achieved. I think, however, my mother wanted me to become a writer rather than an actor, so I know she will be proud of my first try at it with Following Foo.”
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