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!

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

Noel Toy: She's Fan-tastic!

"She was an outrageous rebel." So says filmmaker Arthur Dong, who chronicled exotic dancer Noel Toy and fellow Chinese American performers in Forbidden City, U.S.A. (1989), a documentary about America's premiere all-Chinese nightclub.

Born in San Francisco, Noel Toy (real name Ngun Yee) got her start in showbiz in 1939 at the Golden Gate International Exposition held on San Francisco's Treasure Island. A UC Berkeley student at the time, she was offered a job at the Expo's Chinese Village that evidently involved "little more than standing around in a Chinese gown." Noel soon found another job — that also required little more than standing around, and in a lot less than a gown — at the Candid Camera attraction, which invited fairgoers to photograph live nude models.

When the Forbidden City's PR man suggested to owner Charlie Low that what they needed to attract more customers was a Chinese bubble dancer, Charlie hired Noel to perform at his nightclub. Undoubtedly, the idea was inspired by Sally Rand — the original bubble dancer — who was stirring up lots of controversy and making lots of money at the Golden Gate Expo with her "Nude Ranch" and nightly performances at The Music Box (currently known to Bay Area residents as the Great American Music Hall). So that's how UC coed Ngun Yee came to be known as Noel Toy, the "Chinese Sally Rand".

Business at the Forbidden City tripled within three months, and Noel soon began performing at other clubs around San Francisco. In February 1941, she was appearing in Reno, Nevada and later that year she was invited by a promoter to perform in New York City, where she was a big hit.

In the fall of 1942, Noel appeared in the Broadway revue Wine, Women and Song. The show ran for 150 performances, from September 28th until December 3, when it was shut down on obscenity charges. A witness at the trial said that Noel Toy "was nude except for her shoes and one other piece of clothing, and pretended to dance but didn't move her feet" (Associated Press, December 1, 1942). Another witness, commenting on her signature fan dance, testified that Noel intermittently revealed "all or substantially all her body." On December 18, the producer of the show was sentenced to a six month prison term, and the judge had these words to say to Noel Toy and fellow performer Margie Hart.

Whether or not these so-called leading attractions, these artists of the strip tease, are to be prosecuted under another law for their indecent performance, this court does not presume to know.

But the hope is expressed that they earn the just contempt of those in the theatrical profession who are still interested in maintaining the high moral standards of the stage.

—International News Service, December 18, 1942

Noel Toy gave up burlesque dancing but continued performing songs and monologues in NYC. In 1945 she met and married actor Carleton Young and retired from the stage. Noel subsequently had a sporadic career in film and television, which included appearances in Soldier of Fortune (1955), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), and a few episodes of M*A*S*H*, but not surprisingly, Hollywood didn't have much to offer her.

But lucky for us, the famously sexy — and infamously indecent — dance that made Noel Toy a star for a few brief years has been preserved on film and made available by the Prelinger Archives.


Further Reading and Viewing

• "Noel Toy – famed exotic dancer of '40s"


• Forbidden City, U.S.A. (1989)