Susan Egan arrived at the final callback for the character Belle in Disney’s first Broadway musical “Beauty and the Beast” in 1994. The 23-year-old sat in the corner of the room and read “The Mists of Avalon,” a King Arthur story, to keep herself centered and calm among the other young actresses vying for the coveted role. Read more...

Photo: Alumna Susan Egan originated the role of Belle in the first Broadway rendition of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” in the 1990s. (Courtesy of Joan Marcus)

A UCLA professor’s documentary turned 30 years old this year, but its plot bears eerie parallels to the hate crimes of today. Renee Tajima-Peña, a professor of Asian American studies, helped direct “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” which documents the murder of Chin, a Chinese man beaten to death by two white autoworkers, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz in Detroit in June 1982 . Read more...

Photo: UCLA Asian American studies professor Renee Tajima-Peña helped direct the documentary film “Who Killed Vincent Chin?” about the 1982 murder of a Chinese man who was beaten to death by two white men. (Courtesy of Claudio Rocha)