| Nancy Hsueh | |
| Birth Date: | 25 February 1941 |
| Birth Place: | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Portland, Maine, U.S. |
| Occupation: | Actress |
| Years Active: | 1945–1978 |
| Notable Works: | Love is a Many Splendored Thing Targets |
Nancy Hsueh (February 25, 1941 – November 24, 1980)[1] [2] was an American actress. She was one of the first Asian American actresses to have a leading role in a U.S. television series, Love is a Many Splendored Thing (1967),[3] regarded as the first American soap opera to portray an interracial relationship between an Asian woman and a white man.[4] She also appeared in films such as War Hunt (1962), Cheyenne Autumn (1964), and Targets (1968).[5]
Born in Los Angeles, California, Hsueh made two films as a child actress, China's Little Devils (1945) and Intrigue (1947), on which her father served as a technical adviser.[6] [7]
In the early 1960s, she appeared in the Korean War drama War Hunt (1962)[8] and the John Ford Western Cheyenne Autumn (1964).[9] According to author Jon Abbott, "her exotic appearance kept her busy in the spy shows of the period, including The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, and The Wild, Wild West."[10]
In 1967, she was cast as the female lead in the CBS soap opera Love is a Many Splendored Thing. The series was initially intended as a continuation of the 1955 film of the same name, which told the story of an interracial relationship between an American reporter and a Eurasian doctor. Hsueh portrayed Mia Elliott, the daughter of the couple in the original film.[11] However, CBS censors became uncomfortable with the series' portrayal of an interracial romance between a Eurasian woman (Hsueh) and a white American doctor (Robert Milli), and Hsueh's character was written out of the series within one year.[12]
Her most prominent film role was as Boris Karloff's personal assistant in Peter Bogdanovich's Targets (1968).[13] She had only a few small parts in film and television in the 1970s; her final acting role was in House Calls (1978).[14]
Hsueh was the daughter of Wei Fan Hsueh, who was born in Nanking, China, and Evelyn Postal, who was of Native American and Scots-Irish descent.[15] She majored in education at the University of California, Los Angeles.[16]
On January 16, 1965, she married Daniel Carr, whom she had met during filming of Cheyenne Autumn.[17]
She died of atherosclerosis in Portland, Maine on November 24, 1980, aged 39.