In Memoriam: Lois Wheeler Snow

Lois Wheeler Snow died on April 3, 2018, in Geneva, Switzerland. The actress and author was an outspoken critic of human rights abuses in China. Born in 1920 in Stockton, California, Ms. Snow was the widow of journalist Edgar Snow, whose 1937 book on the Communist revolution, Red Star Over China, remains a classic. Ms. Snow moved to Switzerland with her husband and two children in 1959 after being blacklisted during the McCarthy era. A founding member of the Actors Studio, she appeared in numerous Broadway plays, on television and in the movies. She later wrote several books on China and travelled widely in the country, hoping to foster better understanding between the Chinese and American people. She was appalled at the Chinese government’s crackdown on the Tiananmen Square demonstrators in 1989. In 2000, she travelled to Beijing to lend support to the Tiananmen Mothers but was prevented by the authorities from meeting its leader, Professor Ding Zilin.