Hollywood's first male sex symbol

You know Sessue Hayakawa who played Colonel Saito in Bridge on the River Kwai? Did you know he was a major silent film star, one of the highest paid in Hollywood? Thomas Ince put him in Wrath of the Gods and The Typhoon, in 1914.

Cecil B DeMille made sex movies before moving on to religious epics. In 1915, Hayakawa starred in DeMille's The Cheat, which made him a Valentino-like superstar. According to his biography on imdb.com, "He played an ivory merchant who has an affair with the Caucasian Fannie Ward, and audiences were 'scandalized' when he branded her as a symbol of her submission to their passion. The movie was a blockbuster for Famous Players-Lasky (later Paramount), turning Hayakawa into a romantic idol for millions of American women, regardless of their race."
 
He also started his own company making movies aimed at Asian-American audiences. His popularity waned in the '20s with the wave of anti-Asian racism and he spoke with a strong Japanese accent which hurt his career in the sound era.