Serge Temoff – From Harbin to Hollywood

I’m making a bit of a specialty in collecting foreigners of one sort of another born in China who went on to become (or at least try to become) Hollywood stars (if any publisher thinks there’s a book in that feel free to call!!). Here’s the latest addition – Serge Temoff…

Temoff was a Russian but had been born in the heavily Russified Chinese city of Harbin in 1901. His father was a fur trader who moved the family between Moscow and Harbin. Temoff was a trained ballet dancer and worked with the Moscow Opera in 1916 and had become a soloist with the Maryinsky. During the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution he served with General Kolchak’s White army (his two brothers died in the conflict), eventually having to flee across Siberia to China and from there to America where he joined Anna Pavlova’s touring company. The Devil Dancer was his first straight acting role in 1927 where he appeared along with Gilda Grey, Clive Brook and Anna May Wong. He had joined the Goldwyn Studios as a dance instructor but Sam Goldwyn himself was said to have spotted him and ordered he be cast in films in acting roles. Goldwyn liked Temoff’s large eyes and believed he saw twenty years of suffering in his face.