Irene Tsu: Movies & Box Office

Irene Tsu (born November 4, 1945 in Shanghai, China) began her entertainment career as a teenage dancer in the film Flower Drum Song (1961) after being discovered by choreographer Hermes Pan during a Broadway audition. Raised in a family that fled post‑war China, she spent her early years in Taiwan, Hong Kong and ultimately Larchmont, New York, where she studied ballet and entered the Miss Chinatown USA pageant, winning the title in 1961. Her breakout speaking role came opposite James Stewart in Take Her, She's Mine (1963), and she quickly became a familiar face on 1960s‑70s television, guest‑starring on series such as Perry Mason, I Spy, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Mission: Impossible, Wonder Woman, and Hawaii Five‑O. Tsu’s fluency in English and three Chinese dialects helped her secure diverse roles, from a teenage prostitute to a scheming spy, and she was even considered for the female lead of The Sand Pebbles. Beyond acting, she pursued extensive training with acting legends Ned Maderino, Lee Strasberg and Peggy Feury, and attended UCLA Film School as well as California State University, Los Angeles. In the late 1970s she pivoted to entrepreneurship, founding The IT Company/Irene Tsu Designs, where she served as chief operating officer and head designer until 1989. Since 1990 she has built a successful second career in real‑estate, working for Coldwell Banker and later Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, while also becoming a certified yoga instructor who studied under Bikram Choudhury and teaches classes throughout Los Angeles. Her personal life includes a marriage to director Ivan Nagy (1971‑1980) and the raising of a daughter, an adopted niece from China, making her a resilient single mother and a multifaceted contributor to both the entertainment and business worlds.