Interview With Pearl Fu Of Local Colors

For the most part, when you meet a famous person, you can quickly sense that something extra that they were blessed with.

Pearl Fu is responsible for many acts of diversification and humanitarianism that begins locally and stretches to the once impoverished village of Lijiang, China.  Fu is Roanoke's goodwill ambassador and has expanded her organization’s membership, Local Colors, from four to more than 75 countries. 

She is one of the select few who encompass this magnetic characteristic and owns it well. 

When Fu was approached with an offer to be interviewed, she somehow squeezed it in between meeting with news crews and attending fundraising events.  This set the stage to hear about a side of Fu that not many have.  

As she offered me a home-made egg roll, we began to talk.

Q: I noticed your collection of celebrity photos.  Are they all real?
Fu: Oh, yes.  I’m fascinated by showbiz, did you know that?  When I was a child, an aunt of mine gave me all of her Photoplay magazines…It is movie magazines from the ‘40s and ‘50s.  She had a whole collection; she gave them all to me.  So, I would read through everything so I knew everything about the movie stars, just fascinated by movie stars.  And I go to movies a lot.

Q: Is this in China?   
Fu: Yeah, in Honk Kong actually.  Every weekend I went to American movies.  I thought when I come to America, you heard of Doris Day?  Actress Doris Day! (she laughs)  Boy, there’s really a generation gap there.  I loved her movies and I thought everybody in America would be dancing and singing on the streets.  What a shock, it wasn’t like that. (we laugh)

Q: How did you get the opportunity to meet all of those stars?
Fu: My first encounter with a celebrity was in Princeton, in New Jersey.  I worked in this hotel called Nassau Inn and all of the celebrities stayed there and Brooke Shields was going to college there.  Did you see that picture?  It’s of Brooke, my daughter, and I.  Brook’s mother said, “Your daughter is beautiful!”  And I said, “Coming from you, that’s really a compliment.”  She was really nice.

Q: How many children do you have?
Fu: I have three daughters who are all continuing my legacy…One of my daughters went to UVA.  I went to see her one weekend they had the film festivals there.  I was purchasing a ticket and they said, “Would you like to be the hostess for the opening reception?”  I said sure, and that’s where I met these old timers so you may not know them.  Jimmy Stewart?  “Rear Window?”  “It’s a Wonderful Life?”  That’s him.  And another big one, Gregory Peck, “To Kill a Mockingbird”, and Sissy Spacek, Sidney Poitier.  It was so exciting!

Q: The photo of you with Alice Cooper couldn’t be real.  How did that come about?
Fu: I was the director of concierge services for a hotel in Roanoke where all of the celebrities stayed too, and he was one of them.  He would bow down every morning to kiss my hand and calls me your highness. (she’s laughing)  He has reformed, no longer bites heads and doesn’t drink.  Yeah, very nice person.  Gave me tickets to his show.  Kept asking, “Did you like it, did you like it?”  I said yeah, I liked it.

Q: Do you have any other background in the arts?
Fu: When I first came to America, I went to college in Baltimore, Peabody Conservatory of Music.  It’s now combined with John Hopkins where my husband went and where we met.

Fu: Ahh, every little thing you do...makes changes.