Barbara Yung: Legend of Burlesque

Belated congratulations to Barbara Yung on her recent induction into the Burlesque Hall of Fame. During the late 1940s, Barbara was one of the reigning queens of the Bay Area's Chinese nightclub scene. Last month in Las Vegas she graced the stage once again to accept the 2011 Legend of Burlesque Award.

I've been unable to discover much about her career, but evidently Barbara started dancing in San Francisco in the early 40s. By 1949 she was headlining the "Chinese Girls-a-Peekin'" Revue at Fong Wan's Club Oakland and the "China Darlings of 1950" Revue the following year at Fong's Club Shanghai across the bay. In 1952, she was back in Oakland at the legendary El Rey, where she starred in "Chinatown after Midnite". And according to IMDB, Barbara even made an appearance, along with Chinese Skyroom owner Andy Wong, in the Frank Sinatra film Pal Joey (1957). Unfortunately, when I watched the film on DVD, both of them were nowhere to be seen.

I did manage to find a couple of choice tidbits about Barbara in the Oakland Tribune's nightlife gossip column "Going Places" that at least give us a little taste of what her performances were like.

"Barbara looks very much like something you might see in Terry and the Pirates. Tall, shapely as a Varga girl, and dances beautifully to music like "Rhapsody in Blue" and other intricate symphonic arrangements." (June 11, 1949)

"Barbara Yung is one of the cleverest tall, willowy dancers in show business today. Quite rare to see a Chinese girl with her elevation. Her routines these eves at Fong Wan's Club Oakland are sophisticated yet quite artistic." (June 25, 1949)

It was also noted in "Going Places" that Barbara made her own costumes and was "something of an outstanding couturier when it comes to sequin needlework" (October 15, 1949). Go ahead and click on her glamor shot at the top of this post for a closer look at how amazing she was with a needle.

It's heartening to see Barbara honored in her lifetime as one of burlesque's trailblazers, alongside such luminaries as Josephine Baker, Sally Rand, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Tempest Storm. At the age of 92 Barbara Yung still bedazzles (that's her in the photo on the right with contemporary burlesquer Shanghai Pearl) and reminds us to forge our own paths with courage, passion, and style!

A great big thanks to Shanghai Pearl for the photos. The Club Oakland ad comes from the August 20, 1949 edition of the Oakland Tribune.

Give Me One More Piece of Cake

Thanks again everybody for the huge outpouring of love and support! It's enough to make me feel all soft and chewy on the inside. Well, as fate would have it, my retro-buddy Dev Yang just posted a truly rare — and tasty — piece of Chinese movie history on his YouTube channel. It inspired me to come back on stage for an encore post. (And remember, good things come to those who click!)

The following clip is from On With the Show (万紫千红, also known as Myriad of Colors), a Chinese film made in Shanghai in 1943 during the period of total Japanese occupation. I talk a lot about lost films on this blog, but it is no exaggeration to say that On With the Show comes from the darkest of Chinese cinema's "lost continents". Those film workers who chose to remain and continue making movies in Shanghai during the occupation era (1941-45) were accused of treason by both the Communists and the Nationalists. Such was the shame and fear of retribution that many of them would never admit — even many years later — of ever taking part. I don't have the time right now to elaborate further, but for those who are interested, let me recommend Poshek Fu's Between Shanghai and Hong Kong: The Politics of Chinese Cinemas, a meticulously researched study that rescues this fascinating period from historical amnesia.

And now, On With the Show. This Hollywood-style musical was directed by Fang Peilin, who rose to fame with the box-office hit Girl in Disguise (1936), a cross-dressing gender-bender that spawned three sequels and can rightly be considered the spiritual ancestor of Hong Kong's He's a Woman, She's a Man (1994). And the leading lady of On With the Show is none other than the magnificent Li Lihua — only 19 years old at the time but already one of Shanghai's top stars.

As an extra treat, I've also transcribed a contemporaneous — and deliciously wry — review of the film written in English by renowned Chinese writer Eileen Chang for The XXth Century, a monthly journal published by the cosmopolitan Klaus Mehnert (and financed by the German Foreign Office) from 1941 to 1945.

Without further ado, here is Li Lihua performing "The Cake Song" with the Takarazuka dancers...

ON THE SCREEN

On With the Show. In the leading parts: Li Li-hwa, Yen Djuen, and Wang Tan-feng.

Much of the box-office appeal of On With the Show depends on its promises of sophisticated sensuality; yet the film is curiously naïve. Li Li-hwa (her photograph appeared in Vol. IV, p. 141, of this magazine) takes the part of a beautiful and oratorical waitress in a restaurant picturesquely old-fashioned in the European style. Making her first appearance on a cart loaded with hay and farm produce, Li Li-hwa sings and recklessly throws apples to street children. With her songs, her charms, and the aid of the Takarazuka dancers, she finally raises enough funds to found an orphanage.

Justifying the entertainment by the worthy cause of charity is one of those usual attempts to assuage the demand for an immediate purpose in art. However, On With the Show fails to please everybody all round. Mosquito papers, by far the most favored reading matter among certain urban sets, have contributors who suspect that they do not like On With the Show because of its moralizing. They cannot help complaining that Li Li-hwa shows her famous legs only once, and then half buried in furs.

In Chinese eyes, the Takarazuka dances are expressive only of the splendor of youth, health and intelligent discipline. To the average Chinese, the fascination of ballet lies chiefly in its difficulty. They also find the traditional Japanese dances hard to understand on the screen without the help of the symphonic colors of costumes and background. But on the other hand the audience laughs heartily at the practical jokes the hero and heroine play on each other — Li Li-hwa fries some bad eggs for her admirer and he sends her an empty cup of ice cream. Also well received are the Chinese Laurel and Hardy who mess about in the restaurant kitchen. On With the Show is a success with the public in spite of its banal situations, its structural weakness, and its apparent clashing of adult and infantile interests. The last-mentioned shortcoming may be disregarded, because modern Chinese of all ages are like children in their fondness for birthday cakes, with or without dancers swirling around one as in the charity performance in On With the Show. The whole picture is modeled on the Hollywood series of Gold Diggers and The Big Broadcast and is meant to "feed the eyes with ice cream and seat the heart in a sofa" [NOTE] — to quote the phrase a Chinese critic once applied to these American extravaganzas.

— Eileen Chang, from The XXth Century, Vol. V, No. 4 (October 1943). Original scan available here.

The Eileen Chang review is courtesy of the Hamilton Library, University of Hawaii at Manoa, which has generously scanned and made available on their website PDFs of the entire run of The XXth Century. Fans of Eileen Chang will want to root around the site for her other English-language essays and film reviews. A great big thanks to the Hamilton Library! Open access = cultural preservation.

Anna May Wong: La Malinche

Currently up for auction on eBay is this fabulous portrait by Armando Drechsler of Anna May Wong as the controversial "Mother of Modern Mexico", La Malinche. It's not as odd as first seems. During her early career, Anna May played a variety of "exotic" ethnicities besides her own: for example, the Arab girl Zira in The 40th Door (1924) and the Inuit girl Keok in The Alaskan (1924). Such ethnic transformations were commonplace in Hollywood at the time, not to mention the institutionalized practice of yellowface.

Drechsler's choice of Anna May Wong as his model for La Malinche is especially provocative because many of the charges leveled against La Malinche — even still today — were also leveled against Anna May: harlot, race traitor, miscegenist.

But it seems plausible to me that Drechsler, who was originally from Germany and likely familiar with Anna May's European sojourns, instead regarded both women as boundary-crossing pioneers.

Whatever the inspiration, with this painting he created a stunning testament to Anna May Wong's global appeal and world-class beauty.

* For more examples of Armando Drechsler's work, see Mexican Calendar Girls by Angela Villalba.

Noel Toy: Our Lady of Feathers

Fandancer Toy was christened Noel because she was born on Christmas Day 21 years ago. Competitors Sally Rand and Faith Bacon are frequent visitors at Leon and Eddie's, follow Noel's graceful movements with appraising eyes.

Here's another fab spread showcasing Noel Toy and her terpsichorean art that appeared in the cheesecake tabloid CO-EDS (May 1942). The photos are accompanied by their original captions.

U. OF C.'S NOEL TOY
NOBODY'S PLAYTHING
CHINA GIRL CAN DISH IT OUT

Broadway's most publicized Chinese (American-born) glamor girl is appropriately named California Co-ed Noel Toy. Tinytot Toy (five feet tall) was a sophomore language major at University of California when she received her first assignment in the chorus of a San Francisco World's Fair midway attraction. There she was discovered, signed up at Fair's close by Frisco's famed Forbidden City hotspot.

Less than a year later, with but five month's experience as a fandancer behind her, she arrived in New York, became Leon and Eddie's headliner.

A growing reputation for biting repartee and devastating treatment of Fifty-second Street wolves earned introduction to Dramaticritic George Jean Nathan, upon whose elegant arm she often attends First Nights. Lee Mortimer, too, finds her a dynamic supper companion, and, it is rumored, she once received a proposal of marriage from Tommy Manville, who explained wistfully that he "had never been married to a Chinese girl."

It must be noted that Noel detests chop suey, is highly allergic to rice.

Start of fandancer Toy's table routine resembles Tahitian grass hut.


She slowly straightens up, pokes head out.


Above, fans cover all but head and feet.


Her fans flash into action with Sally Rand–like skill.


West Coast's Forbidden City nightclub gave Noel start. Now, after 5-month apprenticeship, she ranks with best.


Having made her bow, she continues routine on floor. Noel attended University of California. A language major, she did right well by French, Spanish, German and Latin, flunked Chinese, paradoxically. She speaks English perfectly.


Noel has keen, thoroughly American, sense of humor. Her Christmas card contained tiny V-shaped G-string.

Finally, for a taste of Noel's sharp wit and hearty laugh check out this 2001 interview, taped when she was a spry 80-something-year-old!

Antique Shanghai Pop Music

I'm quite remiss in not pointing this out sooner — since I first discovered it about a month ago — but better late than never. Launched in January this year, Antique Shanghai Pop Music is a wonderful new podcast devoted to the golden age of Mandarin pop, hosted with ardor and wit by the charming Ling. Whether you are a total stranger to these classic songs, an already avid but linguistically impaired fan, or a native-speaking aficionado, you will find Ling a most endearing and knowledgeable guide.

So far he has created five installments, starting with an overview of Shanghai-era shi dai qu (literally, "songs of the times") followed by episodes devoted to pairs of individual singers, such as Zhou Xuan & Yao Li and Li Xianglan & Bai Guang. Ling hopes to complete a dozen installments, after which he plans to enhance the contents of his site with singer and composer profiles and English lyrics for all of the songs featured in his podcasts.

This last feature, which he's already started, is a godsend for folks like me who love shi dai qu but haven't yet attempted the daunting task of learning Mandarin. Thanks to Ling's show I'm finally able to understand the words of some of my favorite songs. And let me tell you, it's like falling in love all over again.

So please check out Antique Shanghai Pop Music. It earns my highest recommendation. You can download the shows directly from Ling's site, as well as Apple's iTunes Store.

* The image above comes Chinese Woman and Modernity: Calendar Posters of the 1910s-1930s.

There's Something About Maylia

Here are a few pics that didn't make it into my previous post about Maylia, the striking beauty that Columbia Pictures was hoping to turn into the next Anna May Wong. The first two photos are publicity shots for her grand debut, To the Ends of the Earth (1948), and the last is from the April 1948 issue of Esquire.

Maylia: "Beautiful" in Cantonese

 "Hollywood's first Chinese starlet since Anna May Wong"

No, Maylia was not the "first Chinese starlet since Anna May Wong", as claimed by Columbia Pictures, but she did join the ranks of earlier Chinese American actresses misused and undervalued by Hollywood: such as Lotus Liu, who was twice promised the featured role in The Good Earth (1937) that eventually went to Austrian dancer Tilly Losch; charming Iris Wong, who provided a bouquet of freshness to Charlie Chan in Reno (1939) and Charlie Chan in Rio (1941) before disappearing into the thin air of uncredited bit parts; and Marianne Quon, who, after showing great promise in China (1943) and Charlie Chan in the Secret Service (1944), moved to Hong Kong, where she became one of the colony's top stars.

Hailing from Detroit, Michigan, Maylia — real name: Gloria Chin — was just a 20-year-old coed vacationing in Hollywood when she was spotted in a restaurant by the wife of writer-producer Sidney Buchman. She was asked to audition for a role in Buchman's big-budget project, To the Ends of the Earth, and voilà! — a star was born. Of course, she would need to change her name to something more befitting the "first Chinese starlet since Anna May Wong", something a little more exotic. According to the studio publicity, "Maylia is her name, and in Cantonese it means beautiful" (The Huntingdon Daily News, March 3, 1947).* Around the same time, Gloria underwent another name change. Within days of signing her contract with Columbia Pictures, she had a fateful meeting with actor Benson Fong (best known at the time as Charlie Chan's "number three son"). It must have been love at first sight, because the two got hitched a few weeks later.

Although shooting for To the Ends of the Earth was completed in early 1947, the film wasn't released until the following year. In the meantime, Maylia played a small part in Universal's Singapore (1947), as Ava Gardner's servant. Unbeknownst to the public, she was also in "preproduction" for a role that would soon take her away from acting. Before her film debut even hit the screens that August, the "first Chinese starlet since Anna May Wong" was already pregnant with her first child and due for delivery in January of 1948 (which could have been why Columbia decided to delay the release of To the Ends of the Earth).

Maylia in Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture

Motherhood definitely threw a wrench in Columbia's plans for the "first Chinese starlet since Anna May Wong", and Maylia quietly rode out her contract with a couple of B-list Chinatown mysteries: Boston Blackie's Chinese Venture (1949) and Chinatown at Midnight (1949). In 1950, Maylia gave birth to her second child, which effectively marked the end of her brief film career (although she evidently made two uncredited appearances in the early 50s).

Luckily for us, we can at least glimpse the star that Maylia might have been in the following clip from To the Ends of the Earth. Let me set up the scene for you: Dick Powell plays an agent from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics who's been engaged in a round-the-world manhunt for the mysterious "Jean Hawks", leader of a global drug ring using opium as a "weapon to keep the world divided and its citizens slaves"; Swedish actress Signe Hasso plays an American philanthropist whom we are led to believe might actually be the nefarious "Jean Hawks"; and Maylia plays the Chinese war orphan who is unknowingly being used by "Jean Hawks" as part of her cover.



Talk about a twist! Who'd have thought that the leader of a global drug ring funding the Japanese war machine is a 19-year-old Chinese girl. I'm alternately wowed and appalled by the proposition. On the one hand, it makes for a pretty cool villain role, which Maylia clearly relished. On the other, such a blatant resurrection of "The Daughter of Fu Manchu" in a movie purporting to be "based on actual incidents from the files of the United States Department of Treasury" is, frankly, quite demented. But hey, that's Hollywood for you.

I must say that I found Dick Powell and his righteous speechifying quite annoying. In my fantasy version of the film, the pistol is loaded with real bullets instead of blanks, and Maylia has the last line. "Don't call me princess, gweilo."

* BTW, "beautiful" in Cantonese is more accurately rendered in English as "mei lai".

Beatrice Fung Oye: Brooklyn Swing Diva

I wish I could tell you more about Chinese American singer Beatrice Fung Oye, but I've only found a few scraps of information, mostly from Billboard and some of the New York gossip columns of the day.

I can't confirm when she started to sing professionally, but by June of 1942 Beatrice was performing at Louise's Monte Carlo in New York City. "Fung Oye, Chinese, is a cute, young thing who sings pops in a pleasant enough voice and with vivacity. In her 15th week here, her popularity continues to grow" (Billboard, October 3). Billboard listings indicate that she stayed on at the Monte Carlo through the rest of '42.

The following year she performed for a few months at the Ubangi — where she was "the first non-Negro" to sing at the club (Billboard, February 20) — before moving on to Leon & Eddie's in May. Beatrice was still playing at Leon & Eddie's a year later, although I've found no proof whether she sang there exclusively.

During this time her name popped up occasionally in the New York gossip columns, which were syndicated in newspapers across the country. Walter Winchell mentioned her as "the cute little Chinese girl soliciting funds for China Relief at 57th and 5th" (October 31, 1942), and according to Dorothy Kilgallen, the "chanteuse at Leon & Eddie's is mad about Mexican chili con carne — and what's more, she eats it with chopsticks!" (May 5, 1943).

In 1945 Beatrice got a big break when she was selected as one of the winners of ABC's On Stage Everybody talent contest (The Abilene Reporter-News, April 7). The prize was a role in the Universal musical based on ABC's popular radio show. Here's a photo of her with five of the ten winners. The movie opened in July, and that fall Beatrice toured the country with a vaudeville unit composed of performers from the cast.


Newspaper ad from The Salt Lake Tribune (October 21, 1945)

After her brush with national fame, Beatrice returned to New York City and sang at the China Doll, the East Coast equivalent of San Francisco's Forbidden City. She was evidently still newsworthy enough to appear on the Broadway gossip radar. Columnist Danton Walker revealed this amusing bit of trivia: "When Beatrice Fung Oye, the Brooklyn-born Chinese prima donna, goes to Dodgers games she yells at the umpire in Chinese" (December 1, 1947).


Newspaper ad from The New York Times (April 15, 1947)

In 1951–52, she hit the road with Tom Ball's China Doll Revue, performing alongside "Chop Suey" veterans Ming & Ling and Florence Hin Lowe. And that's the last trace of Beatrice I can find.

Luckily, I was able to track down a copy of On Stage Everybody, so let's end this post with a rare glimpse of Brooklyn swing diva Beatrice Fung Oye!

Smoking Diva: Bai Guang

 Bai Guang in A Forgotten Woman (1949)

Let me offer another nicotine-stained post to all of you aficionados out there. My old time buddy Dev Yang "hand-rolled" the following video with choice clips from Miss Bai's classic film A Forgotten Woman (1949) wrapped in a sad song — "The Past is Like Smoke" — from her silver screen farewell, Love's Sad Ending (1959).

Noel Toy: Caught in the Act

By chance I came across a fabulous series of photos of Noel Toy at Google's LIFE image archive. They were taken by Nina Leen, one of the magazine's first female photographers. The February 9th, 1942 issue of LIFE featured an article about the flourishing wartime nightclub scene in New York City. Noel Toy, who was fan dancing at Leon & Eddie's at the time, appeared in the piece, and these photos look like they might be outtakes from the assignment.

In the fall of 1941 Noel left San Francisco, where she had got her start at the Forbidden City, for a gig at Leon & Eddie's, which according to the LIFE article was the place to go for "sly ditties, fan dancers, smoky jokes and a general old-style, hot-spot atmosphere". She was so popular that she stayed at the club for half a year. Noel once told a reporter, "If I'd stayed there any longer, they would have had to reverse the name 'Leon' and made it 'Noel and Eddie's'."


Ad from Billboard (February 21, 1942)


Here's the caption about Noel that appeared in the LIFE article:

Chinese Fan Dancer
Noel Toy provides a traditional dash of nudity to Leon & Eddie's floor show. Miss Toy majored in French in college, never drinks, goes out with New York dramatic critics. She is named Noel because she was born on Christmas.

The mention of "New York dramatic critics" refers to George Jean Nathan, who was Noel's "little pet monkey" for a time (according to columnist Dorothy Kilgallen). I don't know how long the romance lasted, but Noel soon settled down with actor Carleton Young in 1945. They were together for nearly 50 years, until his death in 1994.


* Photographs courtesy of LIFE.com

The Wongettes: Dancing Debutantes

Elizabeth Jean, Kim Wong, and Helen Kim (left to right)

I don't know too much about The Wongettes besides that they were the house dancers at Andy Wong's Chinese Skyroom. According to a program reproduced in Trina Robbins' book Forbidden City: The Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs, the girls performed numbers such as "Chino Soy" (Chinese Rhumba), "La Conga", and "Kicking the Gong Around" (I'd love to see their interpretation of this Cab Calloway song).

Here's a short piece about the tantalizing trio from the March 1941 issue of The Coast:

Chinese Society Girls Become
Chinese Skyroom Dance Trio

For weeks, the sports-about-town have been gathering every afternoon at the Chinese Skyroom bar to inspire a squad of Chinatown debs in their effort to become chorus girls.

Now, three of the squad have graduated and are part of the the Chinese Skyroom show. They're the luscious Wongettes (after Boss Andy Wong), who, as you can see in pic [above], are not hard to look at; more than that, they've really learned how to dance. You can see them three times per show any of these nights.

The rest of the squad — fourteen of Chinatown's blue-bloods — are still in rehearsal, will make their dancing debut soon.

And finally, check out this cool matchbook. The striking Wongettes are just the thing to light your fire!

Florence Hin Lowe: Chinese Wonder Girl

That's lovely contortionist Florence Hin Lowe on the cover of Billboard (January 8, 1944), an event which was probably the zenith of her twenty-odd-year career. Inside the magazine was the following account of how she got into show business.

FLORENCE HIN LOWE
'China's Sock Contortionist'

"You have to work pretty hard." These six words sum up a modest self-estimate of the talent which has made Florence Hin Lowe's contortion acts one of the socks of showbiz.

It took more than hard work to get Florence Hin Lowe near a stage at all. She is Chinese, and the Chinese view the theater with somewhat more than suspicion. There was a lot of determination involved before she got her Canton-born parents to let her attend acrobatic school at the age of seven. And there were a lot of raised eyebrows in the Los Angelese Chinese community when she went.

However, Flo fooled them all. At 8 she played the Paramount Theater in Los Angeles, at 11 she was on the stage at Grauman's Chinese Theater there. When she was 12, her parents gave up their dried goods business and moved Flo and her aerial somersaults to Chicago.

She's been a sock ever since. In Vancouver, B.C., the Chinese community declares a holiday when she hits town. In Washington, the Chinese ambassador's wife brought the whole embassy staff to see her.

However, being a regular show-stopper hasn't spoiled Florence in the least. If you try to talk to her about her act, she just blushes and says:

"Well, you have to work pretty hard."

And work hard she did. Although her career may not have been glamorous by Hollywood standards, Florence undoubtedly had plenty of great stories to tell after she retired.

That's her on the left when she was just 10 years old, performing at the commencement of a Los Angeles dancing program (Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune, August 7, 1930).

In 1937 she was the lead act of Ted Mack's "Precision Rhythm Orchestra and Revue (The Ogden Standard-Examiner, October 12).

In 1941 Florence was traveling with veteran showman A.B. Marcus, "a sort of road show Ziegfeld", whose revues were "comprised of those sure fire staples of 'flesh' entertainment — plenty of beautiful girls, a good chorus line, an exotic dancer or two, a sprinkling of variety acts and some dependable comics" (Syracuse Herald-Journal, March 1). Evidently, the company of more than 60 performers had "recently returned from a three-year world tour, in which they visited many of the principal cities of Japan, China, the Philippine Islands, South Africa, East Africa, India, Burma, Federated Malay states, Straits settlements, Java, Hong Kong, Cuba, and a return run in Mexico" (The Charleston Gazette, August 17, 1941).

In 1942 Florence was performing in Reno at the State Line Country Club in a floor show headlined by an act called Chick and Lee, "Nitwits of Nonsense" (Reno Evening Gazette, July 30). Now that's show business for you!

In 1943 she was still doing her "rubber-body stuff", this time at New York's Folies Bergere Theater-Restaurant, in a Chinese production number that also included Forbidden City alumni Noel Toy, Jadine Wong, and Li Sun (Billboard, June 12).


Ad in Billboard magazine (August 8, 1943)

By 1949 Florence was performing at town fairs, like the Great Hagerstown Fair in Hagerstown, Maryland, and the Eastern Carolina Agricultural Fair in Florence, South Carolina (in 1950). The description of her act in the Hagerstown newspaper suggests that she had perhaps reached the bottom of the entertainment circuit: "The Lily Lady is pleasant, smiling and good to look at. There is no doubt but what the audience will shout for more when they see this charming performer go through her unusual routines in front of the grandstand" (The Daily Mail, September 16, 1949). Oh dear!

Thankfully, it seems that she climbed back up the ladder, at least to the theater-restaurants of Reno. In late 1951, she was performing at the Hotel Golden, and also with Tom Ball's China Doll Revue, headlined by "Chinese Hillbillies" Ming & Ling.


Well, that's all I know. I'm curious to find out the ending of her story. If anyone out there happens to know what happened to Florence Hin Lowe, the Chinese Wonder Girl, do let me know.

Hong Kong Cowgirl: Yu So Chow

Here's Yu So Chow, Hong Kong's Queen of Martial Arts, decked out as a cowgirl in Bloodbath at Golden Sand Bay (1952), a Western flavored kung fu film that I'm dying to see. It wasn't the only time that Miss Yu donned a cowboy hat and packed a pair of pistols. Her very fist film, shot in Suzhou in 1949, was called Double Pistol Heroine.


Yu So Chow as the "Double Pistol Heroine"

And while we're on the subject of the lovely Miss Yu, here are some pics I've been meaning to post for quite some time. The first comes from Oldflames: a lovely shot of Yu So Chow looking very much like a pirate queen. Can't you picture her armed with a cutlass in each hand?


Finally, here's a recent photo that SpyMonkey kindly sent me, showing Yu So Chow elegantly, yet funkily, dressed during her trip to Hong Kong last November for the 50th anniversary of the Hong Kong–China Opera Institute, the training school founded by her father Master Yu Jim-yuen. (You might have heard of some of its students ... like Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao.)


Anyway, it's pretty remarkable seeing these last two photos side by side. Despite the passage of nearly 60 years, Yu So Chow still has the same cool style. I especially love her matching green nail polish!

The Lost World of Esther Eng

Mad Fire, Mad Love (1949)

The lost films of Esther Eng, the pioneering Chinese American female director, are as tantalizing as the above advertisement for her last movie, Mad Fire, Mad Love, a color feature set and shot in Hawaii.

A couple of weeks ago Frank Bren, co-author of Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View, wrote a wonderful tribute to Esther Eng in memory of her passing 40 years ago. Hers is a fascinating story that deserves to be better known. Unfortunately, none of the nine films she directed have survived. Frank and Hong Kong movie historian Law Kar have been trying to restore Esther to her proper place in film history. They've written about her in their book (mentioned above) and have created a website (that is, sorry to say, sorely in need of a redesign). Evidently, they are also developing a feature film about her life. All of which is a roundabout way of excusing myself from duplicating their research and encouraging you to read Frank's article, look for Hong Kong Cinema: A Cross-Cultural View at your local library, and visit the Esther Eng website.

Let me instead present some primary source materials that I've been able to dig up. First is a full page ad for Esther's first film project, Heartaches (1936). The ad comes from the January 31, 1936 issue of Chinese Digest, an English-language Chinese American news magazine published in San Francisco.


Heartaches (1936)

The production of the film was chronicled in Chinese Digest in the months leading up to its release. On December 6, 1935 it was reported that scenes were shot in San Francisco Chinatown before the crew left for Hollywood to finish filming the story. On December 13, 1935 it was revealed that Heartaches would include scenes shot in Technicolor, still a new process at that time (the first feature shot in Technicolor, Becky Sharp had just been released the previous summer). On December 20, 1935 it was reported that production had been completed and that the film would be released shortly. On December 27, 1935 it was announced that Heartaches would debut at the Mandarin Theatre in San Francisco Chinatown on New Year's Day. I've been unable to confirm if the premiere happened as planned, but the following news item from February 14, 1936 suggests that the screening may been postponed.

"Heartaches" to Be Shown This Week

Cathay Pictures' super singing and talking picture, "Heartaches", will be shown at the local Mandarin Theater this Saturday and Sunday, with Wei Kim Fong, stage star, in the leading role.

"Heartaches" is financed by Quon Yi Lum, and produced by Esther Eng and Bruce Wong, with Paul Ivano, formerly Gloria Swanson's best cameraman, doing the camera work. Story and direction are by Frank Tong and Henry Tung.

[NOTE: Frank Tong (Tang) worked in Hollywood as an actor and technical advisor for more than twenty years. He also provided the calligraphy for the the signs and banners in The Good Earth.]

The story concerns an aviation student in America, Ching, played by Beal Wong, who falls in love with an opera star, played by Wei Kim Fong. The manager of the opera company, jealous of Fong's constant rendezvous with Ching, threatens to discharge her and send her back to China.

[NOTE: Beal Wong was a bit player in Hollywood for some 30 years, appearing in nearly 50 films.]

Ching finishes his training, goes to war in China, and is separated from his loved one. While in China, he marries and Fong, hearing about it, is heartbroken.

Capacity audience is expected to witness this stirring film. All of the players in the cast, with the exception of the star, are American-Chinese. Miss Eng with Miss Fong, will journey shortly to China to seek prospective film stars for their coming productions. They will stay in China for two months.

The present picture will also be shown in Singapore in the near future.

In May 1936 Esther Eng and Wai Kim Fong did indeed sail to Hong Kong, where they screened Heartaches. Wai Kim Fong would star in Esther's next two films, her first as director: National Heroine (1937), a patriotic movie about a woman who joins the Chinese army to prove that the "weaker" sex is vital to the defense of China; and Ten Thousand Lovers (1938), a Grandview film produced by Joseph Sunn Jue.

Esther would return to the U.S. and work again with Grandview on several pictures, including Golden Gate Girl (1941), starring a young Bruce Lee, just three months old; and A Fair Lady by the Blue Lagoon (1947), a love story set in rural California.


A Fair Lady by the Blue Lagoon (1947), aka The Blue Jade

Esther Eng's final film was Mad Fire, Mad Love (1949). Later that year she moved to New York City and opened a Chinese restaurant: an inconspicuous ending to the story of a forgotten movie pioneer.

Let me leave you with one last interesting item about Esther from the May 8, 1936 issue of Chinese Digest, on the eve of her career as film director. In a column called "Lien Fa Saw You" talking about the latest hairstyles being worn in Chinatown, Esther — quite a fetching tomboy — is among the ladies mentioned (and, I might add, so is Li Tei Ming, future wife of Charlie Low and featured singer at Forbidden City).

As Miss Esther Eng favors sports clothes, her hair is fashioned "in tune". A sleeky boyish bob is worn with one very slight wave at the left side, which breaks the straightness. When attending a formal affair, more waves may be seen, a clever idea, and most charming on Miss Eng.

Thanks to The Chinese Mirror and Roast Pork Sliced From A Rusty Cleaver for the heads-up about Frank Bren's article!

* NOTE: the image of Mad Fire, Mad Love at the top of this post is not an actual artifact but a composite that I created from identical, but differently colored, versions of an ad that appeared in a Chinese movie magazine.

Socko: San Francisco's Chinese Nightclubs

Here are three reviews from Billboard magazine of San Francisco's top Chinese nightclubs during the 1940s. They provide a great snapshot of that era.

You'll notice that Walton Biggerstaff is credited for the productions at all three clubs. He also trained many of the dancers back then. I'll have more to share about him later.

I was also surprised to see a few names that I'd never come across before, like Chinese Skyroom "showstopper" Roberta Wing and cavorting trumpet player Prince Gum Low. Just more proof that, in spite the wealth of material presented in Arthur Dong's documentary and Trina Robbins' new book, there are still more stories waiting to be told.

And of course, who can resist the enticing promise of the Wongettes and their "snappy cake-walk routine"! More about them later, as well.

Well, without further ado, please give a hand for the talented Asian American performers of "The Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs"...

Kubla Khan,
San Francisco

Talent Policy: Dance band and floorshows at 7:30, 9:30 and 12. Owner, Eddie Pond. Prices: $1.50 minimum. Dinner from $2.50.

Whole Show: good; features Chinese acts and dance line; well received.

Best Job: FRANCES CHUN, thrush with deep qualities; on order of Frances Langford; "juke box medley" outstanding; socko.

Other Acts: JADIN and LI-SUN, dancers; individual stylists; flair for comedy; work well together. MAE LEE, singer; does semi-classics and light opera; clear, pleasing soprano; good hand. PRINCESS LOO HING, fem magician; works alone; tricks standard. ELEANOR YOUNG, Chinese Carmen Miranda; graceful, good voice; sells okay. KUBLA DANCERS (6), pretty group in several Walton Biggerstaff produced numbers; gowned gorgeously.

Band: BILL OETKE'S RUMBEROS (8) play a snappy show and hip-shaky numbers. Owner Eddie Pond emcees. Business capacity.

Edward Murphy

— Billboard, August 11, 1945

Chinese Skyroom,
San Francisco

Talent Policy: Dancing and Floorshows at 8, 10 and 12. Owner-manager, Andy Wong; production, Walton Biggerstaff. Prices: $1.50 minimum; no cover.

Strictly a Chinese line-up. The Six Wongettes get things started with a snappy cake-walk routine. Gals are fresh-looking and put plenty of punch in their dancing. Costumes are abbreviated but gorgeous. Mirth spot in show handled by Prince Kim Low [Prince Gum Low], who literally blows himself blue in the face with satirical trumpet solos. Paunchy, yet light on his feet, the prince cavorts with the patrons. Gets hearty laughs.

Sweetly lyrical is Beatrice Tom, a cute lark who does well with Embraceable You and I've Got the World on a String. Has good microphone poise. A shot of the sensational is Ah Wing, magician, who baffles with a fire-eating act and ekes gasps from ringsiders by poking a flaming fire-stick down his gullet.

Kim and Jessica Wong put a touch of the Oriental in a rumba number. Makes for good entertainment. Plenty of hand-clapping. Showstopper, however, is Roberta Wing, petite vocalist with a style all her own. Has plenty of verve and a catchy lilt to her voice. Especially good in Tampico and Rosemary. Begged off after taking five encores.

Finale is a madhouse, with the entire troupe milling around to Begin the Beguine. Suave Sammy Tong emcess. Don Ferrara's ork (6) backs up show effectively.

— Billboard, April 20, 1946

Forbidden City,
San Francisco
(Saturday, December 28)

Talent Policy: Floorshows at 8, 10 and 12. Owner-operator, Charlie Low; manager, Frank Huie. Prices: $1.50 minimum.

Clicks could be heard all over the room as Charlie Low unfolded his new Chinese Gay '90s with all-Chinese talent. Produced by Walton Biggerstaff, the revue is fast moving, picturesque and is drawing oodles of clientele in a sagging market.

Opened with the Forbidden City Debutantes (8) and Bobby Wong in a medley. Girls, in old-fashioned gowns, and boys in loud, striped suits, danced thru the medley for a good mitt. Larry Ching soloed oldies and was rewarded with a solid hand.

Three boys and three girls got top reception for their Floradora sextet bit in which they mixed old waltz songs and dance numbers. Low, who emceed the show, then brought on Ching for more oldies, and he encored with Daisy, Old Gray Bonnet, and When You Wore a Tulip. Much applause.

Comedy highlight was Toy Yat Mar, ordinarily the fem chirp star, who appeared with two chorines garbed in ballet costumes to do a Belles of the Ballet number. Good for three encores. The Mei Lings followed with a graceful Merry Widow and a fast Cuddle Up. Miss Mar then came on again in a brace of Sophie Tuckerish tunes.

A French can-can closed. Henry Abramson's ork (7) did an okay job on show and dancing. Room was full.

Edward Murphy

— Billboard, January 18, 1947

* Forbidden City matchbook courtesy of Johnny Dollar's Vault.

Cathay Hey-Hey!

Here's the article from Collier's (February 28, 1942) which accompanied that deliciously lurid photo of Joy Ching I posted last weekend.

There's a nice bit about singer Li Tei Ming, Charlie Low's second wife and also one of the reasons he opened Forbidden City. The description of her singing "Loch Lomond" ("a swing version with Congo rhythms, with an accent partly Scots-Pacific Coast and partly 'Way Down South Cantonese") really drives home the connection between the Chinese American nightclub performers of the 1940s and vaudevillians of the early century like Lee Tung Foo.

It's also interesting to read that "in some of the clubs half the patronage is Chinese". This goes against the general impression I've gotten that the audiences were mainly non-Asian tourists and servicemen.

Finally, let me add my two cents about the oft-repeated assertion, mentioned below, that the reason clubs such as Forbidden City hired all-white bands was because Chinese American musicians just couldn't play Western music. Well, I recently learned that by the 1930s Chinatown already had two dance orchestras: the Chinatown Knights and the Cathayans. In fact, Andy Wong, who opened the Chinese Sky Room, used to be a trumpeter in the Chinatown Knights. Evidently he once hired some of his fellow band members to play at his club, and guess what — they were picketed by the local musician's union, which excluded Chinese Americans from membership at the time. Now, that puts the issue in a new light, doesn't it?

CATHAY HEY-HEY!
BY JIM MARSHALL

It took seventy-five years to break down Chinatown's ban against its daughters dancing and singing for the barbaric whites — but now look at them.

It was a bit confusing until you got the hang of it. This pretty American girl — Li Tei Ming — who was pure Chinese and a philosophy major from the University of Washington, was singing Loch Lomond, a swing version with Congo rhythms, with an accent partly Scots-Pacific Coast and partly 'Way Down South Cantonese.

"By birth and sentiment I'm an American," explained Miss Li, just to clear everything up, "but professionally I'm Chinese, and I can also sing Loch Lomond with an Irish brogue, a Cockney accent or in the South American way."

This made everything as plain as your Grandaunt Emma, but things went haywire again when a Chinese waiter, speaking Spanish with a Texas drawl, came around and served a long Cuban drink to a tiny, gray-haired, feet-bound Chinese woman in a long, black Mandarin gown, who spoke nothing but the Cantonese singsong.... All this was in a night club called the Forbidden City, on Sutter Street in San Francisco, and was part of a scenario titled The Triump of American Folkways over Orientalism.

Until recently the Chinese in America held out pretty well against the mad customs of the Americans. Although, as the years passed, more and more "Chinese" were born here and educated in American schools, the stern family rule of the Orient held sway. The children learned Cantonese and were not allowed to have much truck with the barbaric whites, most of whom couldn't trace back their ancestors more than three generations. Then along came the war, and we became China's ally against the common enemy, and things changed.

It Used to Be Different

Up to three years ago San Francisco's Chinatown — the biggest Chinese city in the Western Hemisphere — maintained its customs and dignities almost untouched by the West. It was — and still is — under the iron rule of the Six Companies, which mete out justice and keep order so well that the appearance of a Chinese in a city court has always been a rarity.

The Chinese had their own theaters and amusements but, as a concession to the tourist trade, maintained occasional tong wars and trick opium dens, many of the former being dreamed up in dull nights in the police-station press room. A tong, actually, is just the Celestial version of the Rotary, or Elks or Moose, but tradition insists that any gunnery or hatcheting in Chinatown is a tong war and that's all there is to it.

There was a lot of critical chatter around the Six Companies headquarters in 1936 when a rebel named Charley Low opened a cocktail bar on Grant Avenue. No Chinese girl was allowed inside, and at first no Chinese came. Tourists did, though, so many of them that in 1938 Charley had Confucius twirling in his grave at the opening of the first Chinese night club on the American plan.

It was tough going, because the ban against Chinese girls in such barbarous places still held and, to top that, no one ever has been able to assemble half a dozen Chinese into a band capable of playing Western music. The boys from South China just can't get those Congo rhythms. Bands in Chinese clubs are white, to this day.

When Charley did succeed in getting a dozen girls as dancers and singers, it still was hard to teach them American dance steps — although they were all American-born and educated. A Chinese-girl dance line still is far behind the Rockettes, but since it is becoming increasingly hard for Americans to discover any rhythm in today's music, nobody minds much.

At first, only tourists patronized Chinese night clubs, expecting to whiff opium smoke and maybe see a hatchet or two flying. All they saw was Miss Joy Ching (Home Economics, University of Chicago) doing a strip tease as The Girl in the Gilded Cage; and Miss Mary "Butch" Ong dancing along with the Misses Ruby Chew, Rose Chan, Ruth Lee, Minnie Yuke, Eleanor Wong and Faye Ying, who were being the Chinese Floradora Sextet at the moment.

Too New for Sophistication

After a while, the San Franciscans themselves began dropping around to Chinese night spots, and finally the older Chinese themselves peeked in to see what was going on and became regulars. In some of the clubs half the patronage is Chinese.

Now, there are more than a hundred Chinese girl entertainers and waitresses in Chinatown's dozen clubs and bars, but many of the old Chinese families still forbid their daughters to appear in floor shows or mingle in cocktail lounges with people from outlandish places like Iowa and New York.

China changes slowly, and the night club idea still is so new that there is, among the girls, none of the hard-boiled sophistication that is the trademark of their white sisters in Eastern American cities. They're more like a bunch of college kids having a good time — and in fact, more than two thirds of them are graduates of Western universities.

The entertainment is happy-go-lucky, and astounded patrons are sometimes enthralled when the lad handling the spotlight lets go all holds and tries out a white searchlight on a fan dancer instead of the traditional misty blue. And Miss Ching, who poses almost n-k-d at times, has a very fine appendicitis scar two and one-eighth inches in length, and thinks nothing of it. No customer has ever complained.

Most of the entertainers are versatile and a favorite amusement of the line girls is translating American songs into Cantonese — in which language they become even more baffling than in the original. Li Tei Ming, who stars as a singer in the Forbidden City show, not only designed the club layout, but painted the murals.

Every Chinese entertainer imitates some American, and the club floors are crowded with Chinese Bing Crosbys, Chinese Sally Rands, Chinese Maxine Sullivans and Chinese Fred Astaires.

Success of the Chinese invasion of the entertainment field has resulted in the making of Chinese talkies in San Francisco. With the usual Oriental economy a Chinese director can take a thousand feet of negative and make nine hundred ninety-nine feet of movie out of it. The result appalls Hollywood, but wows Chinatown, where the kids gather around for autographs when Chinese stars, unknown to the West, attend premieres. And in Los Angeles, where a brand-new Chinatown has been built, there is going to be a theater for producing Chinese plays in English — or as much of an eight-hour Chinese drama as the white race can take at a gulp.

There's one Western custom no Chinese girl entertainer will surrender to, however. She won't bleach her hair. There are no Chinese blondes — and there never will be.

Joy Ching: Girl in the Gilded Cage

"Miss Joy Ching imparts an Oriental touch to an old American art form as The Girl in the Gilded Cage — a San Francisco Chinatown striptease."

The above photo and caption, from an article that appeared in Collier's (February 28, 1942), luridly answers the question asked a few days ago about what exactly tourists hoped to see inside San Francisco's famous Forbidden City nightclub.

Joy Ching appears to have been a replacement for Noel Toy, the "Chinese Sally Rand" who made Forbidden City a solvent business with her popular bubble dance.

Owner Charlie Low didn't have to be a genius to figure out what made folks flock to his club. When Noel Toy left Forbidden City for more lucrative pastures, Charlie knew he had to find another exotic dancer to keep the cash flowing.

Charlie Low Dreams Up "The Girl in the Gilded (Neon) Cage"

The nation's no. 1 Chinese night club, whose excitements have been extolled by Life, Pic, and other national mags, is doing one of those crazy, wonderful things again.

From the fertile brain of Boss and MC Charlie Low comes the new storm that will sweep over Forbidden City any day now: a tempting Chinese thrush in a bird-cage of golden neon.

Watch for the nude Miss Blossom Lee, "The Girl in the Gilded Cage".

In fact, if you don't keep your eye on Forbidden City all the time, you'll be missing night-club history in the making. Charlie Low has conceived more novel, sprightly, exciting entertainment ideas than any two other showmen in town...

—The Coast, May 1941

Blossom Lee, soon to be known as Joy Ching, was partnered with Jack Mei Ling, one of Forbidden City's first, and longest staying, dancers. At various times, Jack performed as a duo with Jadin Wong and Jade Ling and also as a trio with Mary Mammon and Dorothy Sun. Not only did he choreograph the dances, but he also designed the costumes. As Anthony Lee writes in his fascinating book Picturing Chinatown, Jack developed a unique Orientalist camp style that allowed him to come out of the closet as a gay man on stage in his performances.

Customers Love (!) Charlie Low's (!) Caged Honey (!)

Her name was Betty Lee. Then it became Blossom Lee. Now it's Joy Ching. Under any name she's The Girl in the Gilded Cage. Under any name, too, she's un-Orientally lush with a wallop in nearly all of her dextrous extremities. And this, you may be sure, brings a twinkle to the eyes of customers... and a double twinkle into the eyes of smart Charlie Low, who's the Boss... and the guy who cooked up the Gilded Cage idea in the first place.

That's Joy in the picture above, after emerging from the Cage... in the act of being pursued by another bird, Jack Mei Ling.

—The Coast, June 1941

An act like "The Girl in the Gilded Cage" is one example of how performers at Forbidden City used burlesque to confuse and overturn the definitions of "Chinese" and "American" in U.S. popular culture at the time. Besides its obvious visual reference to the crib prostitutes of old Chinatown, the act also references American vaudeville — the song "A Bird in a Gilded Cage" was an enormous hit in 1900. Add the humorous touch of the neon cage and Jack Mei Ling's camp aesthetic, and you've got a unique twist on the yellowface tradition.

The performers of Forbidden City and San Francisco's other "all-Chinese" nightclubs were more than a novelty. They may not have overturned the unequal representation of Asian Americans on the stage and screen, but they nevertheless found a way to express their talent and ambition.

Forbidden City: Behind the Curtain

"Chinese chorines make up for the floor show at the Forbidden City. This Oriental night club is less sinful than many tourists expect."

I love surprises. After seeing this photograph reproduced in Trina Robbins' new book, Forbidden City: The Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs, I tracked down a copy of the magazine it came from (Holiday, July 1948) and found that the original photo was not black and white — as I expected — but full and living color!

Happy New Year! (Shanghai-Style)

Here's a wonderful tribute to the recently deceased Wu Yingyin, one of the "Seven Great Singing Stars" of Old Shanghai. It's also a great way to ring in 2010, especially for Bay Area folks like myself who can look forward to Shanghai-related events and exhibits all year long.

The video starts off with Wu Yingyin's song "Drunk Night in Neon Light" accompanied by clips from Cosmetics Market (1933), featuring Shanghai movie queen Hu Die, and Orphan Island Paradise (1939), starring Li Lili. Following that is Wu Yingyin's song "Beautiful Spring Night" with clips from New Year's Coin (1937) and Scenes of City Life (1935).



Thanks to SHUESIK for the excellent video, and best wishes to all of my readers for a happy and healthy 2010!

Tales from the Forbidden City

I finally got my hands on Trina Robbins' just published Forbidden City: The Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs. Ever since I heard about it earlier this year, I've been eagerly waiting to read it.

Presented as an oral history, the book records the recollections of nearly two dozen Asian American performers who worked in San Francisco's "all-Chinese" revues from the late 1930s through the 60s. The transcribed interviews of the artists, and their friends and relatives, paint an intimate portrait of this unique cultural scene. Profiled are some of the better known alumni of the Forbidden City nightclub — like singers Larry Ching and Frances Chun and dancers Dorothy Toy, Tony Wing, and Jadin Wong — as well as other performers I'd never heard of before, such as:

• Ellen Chinn, Forbidden City dancer and, according to news of the day, "possessor of Chinatown's most beautiful pair of legs"


• Mai Tai Sing, Forbidden City dancer who later ran a cocktail lounge (The Ricksha) in SF Chinatown and played a bit part in the 1960 TV show Hong Kong, starring Rod Taylor


• Coby Yee, "China's Most Daring Dancing Doll", an exotic dancer who performed off and on at the Forbidden City and later bought the club from founder Charlie Low in the mid-60s


• Cynthia Yee, dancer in Dorothy Toy's various revues, Miss Chinatown of 1967, and founder of the Grant Avenue Follies

One of the best things about the book are the more than 200 illustrations, ranging from newspaper ads and magazine articles to family photos and glamor shots. They are absolutely priceless. It's too bad that Forbidden City wasn't packaged as a glossy coffee table book instead of a humble softcover edition.

My only legitimate complaint is that the book lacks a strong organizational structure and design. Individuals are presented without a clear introduction, which makes it is easy to get lost when reading the book for the first time. In addition, the book could have benefited from a little more historical background to help set the stage for these pioneering performers.

Nevertheless, the social context can be gleaned from within the stories. And I'm grateful that Trina chose to include three particular documents which serve as forceful reminders of the racial barriers existing at the time: namely, official letters from the state bars of Idaho, Nevada, and Utah denying a marriage license to dancer Ellen Chinn and her sweetheart Robert Price. In the words of the State Bar of Nevada: "It is a crime in the State of Nevada for persons of the Caucasian or white race to intermarry with any person of the Ethiopian or black race, Malay or brown race, or Mongolian or yellow race." I must admit, that one sentence sets the stage as well as any introductory essay.

In spite of the misgivings mentioned above, I wholeheartedly recommend Forbidden City to any one interested in the fascinating era of America's Chinese nightclubs. It is an invaluable resource that will undoubtedly spur further appreciation for the rich history of Asian American performers.