Win Min Than (Burmese: ဝင်းမင်းသန်း; born 30 November 1933) is a Burmese actress. She is best known for her role in the 1954 Hollywood film The Purple Plain.

Win Min Than
‹See Tfd›ဝင်းမင်းသန်း
Born
Helga Johnston

(1933-11-30) 30 November 1933 (age 90)
NationalityBurmese-Australian
OccupationActress
Years active1954–1957
SpouseBo Setkya
ChildrenAka Setkya

Biography

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Than was born on 30 November 1933 in Bago, Burma, under British rule, and grew up in Rangoon. Her father was Anglo Burmese and her mother Germanic Burmese. Her father was a government officer. When the Japanese occupied Burma during World War II, the family fled to India. Until she was 14 years old, she attended a convent school, where she learned English.[1]

In 1951, her family sent her to London, where she attended Marie Rambert’s dance school, but she quickly realised that she was not a dancer and returned to Burma.

In 1954, a friend of American director Robert Parrish visited her home and took a photograph of her, which he sent to Parrish. She was selected out of some 200 women for the role of Anna in the film The Purple Plain. She had never acted in a film before and reportedly suffered from severe facial convulsions on set and bulging eyes before kissing scenes.[2][3] Variety praised her romantic scenes with Peck, writing: "Subsequently there are some very tender scenes played in a neighbouring village community in which Peck begins a new romantic entanglement with Win Min Than, an exotic yet restrained Burmese beauty."[4][5][6]

On 7 January 1954 in Rome, she married the Burmese politician Bo Setkya (Thakin Aung Than). They had one son, Aka Setkya. Her husband died on 6 September 1969, following a heart attack. She resides in Australia with her son.[7]

Filmography

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Films

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References

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  1. ^ "Rewind/1954". The Myanmar Times. 22 December 2014. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  2. ^ "ဝင်းမင်းသန်း နှင့် ပြည်သူ့ဂျာနယ်". mingalarpar.org. 18 March 2012. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  3. ^ Steven Schochet (2010). Hollywood Stories: Short, Entertaining Anecdotes about the Stars and Legends. Hollywood Stories. p. 73. ISBN 9780963897275.
  4. ^ Gerard Molyneaux (1995). Gregory Peck: A Bio-bibliography. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780313286681. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  5. ^ "Win Min Than as a Hapa Actress". eminhkhai. 18 March 2014. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  6. ^ "ခရမ်းရောင်လွင်ပြင် မင်းသမီးလေး". missgreenlady. 21 March 2012. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  7. ^ "ကမ္ဘာတွင် မြန်မာ့ဂုဏ်ကို မြှင့်တင်ခဲ့သော ရုပ်ရှင်မင်းသမီး ဝင်းမင်းသန်း". moemaka.com. 19 June 2013. Retrieved 17 November 2017.
  8. ^ "Win Min Than". hollywood.com. Retrieved 17 November 2017.