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.
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!
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.
Tonight was the opening gala for the Swinging Chinatown exhibit at the Old Mint in San Francisco. It was an absolutely fabulous celebration of Trina Robbin's new book Forbidden City: The Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs and the pioneering Asian American performers who created stages of their own on which to fulfill their dreams.
Honestly, I was so excited to be there that I was unable to savor the amazing collection of photographs and memorabilia on display. Curator Kristin Morris, of the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, did an outstanding job of organizing the exhibit, which exceeded by leaps and bounds my already high expectations. Besides the images that appear in Trina's book, there were fantastic photos from the collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America, as well as two from my own collection.
As for the performances, I don't think I stopped grinning the whole time the show was going on. The Grant Avenue Follies performed three numbers ("Chinatown, My Chinatown", "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing", and "All that Jazz"); Jimmy Borges, who flew in from Hawaii, rocked the mike with two tunes (including one he wrote just for the occasion, "I Found My Heart in San Francisco"), and The Shanghai Pearl turned up the heat with a classic striptease and fan dance. Emcee Ben Fong-Torres kept the proceedings smooth, spontaneous, and funny.
I took lots of pictures, but unfortunately I wasn't able to make the best of my brand new 100-buck Kodak. Here are a few that came out all right.
The Grant Avenue Follies proving that you're never too old to swing
Burlesque bird of paradise The Shanghai Pearl flashing her feathers
Two photos from my own collection, showing choreographer Walton Biggerstaff
Yours truly with the truly wonderful Trina Robbins
The exhibit is only open for seven days: Friday, February 12 to Monday, February 15 and Friday, February 19 to Sunday, February 21; noon to 5pm. If you live nearby or are passing through the area, do not miss this rare and precious glimpse of the Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs. I know I'll be making another visit!
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.
Okay folks — get ready for something really special! The San Francisco Museum and Historical Society will be hosting an exhibition in celebration of Trina Robbins' new book Forbidden City: The Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs.
The fabulous photo you see above is just one example of the precious ephemera that will be on display at the museum's new home in San Francisco's Old Mint. Because the building is still being prepared, the Swinging Chinatown exhibit will only be open for a very limited time: Friday, February 12 to Monday, February 15 and Friday, February 19 to Sunday, February 21; noon to 5pm.
If you live in the Bay Area, do not miss this rare opportunity to glimpse this glamorous and groundbreaking chapter of Chinese American history. The exhibit will include more than 100 vintage photographs, dancer Ellen Chin's costumes and gold dancing shoes, Tony Wing's tap shoes, as well as menus, napkins, and other memorabilia from San Francisco's Chinese nightclubs.
Ellen Chin's gold dancing shoes
But wait — there's more! On Thursday, February 11 there will be an opening gala. The tickets are rather steep, but it's for a good cause — to raise funds for the museum. Besides, the event promises to be a night to remember. Local journalist and radio personality Ben Fong-Torres will be master of ceremonies. The Grant Avenue Follies will be providing entertainment, as will former Forbidden City singers Ellie Chui and Jimmy Borges; and contemporary burlesque performer The Shanghai Pearl will be demonstrating precisely why she is known as the Princess of Pulchritude. Finally, let's not forget the grand dame of the evening, the sweet and charming Trina Robbins, who made all of this possible.
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.
"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.
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.
Trina Robbin's new book Forbidden City: The Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs has just been published and is available directly from the publisher (and also from Amazon). I'll post my thoughts about the book as soon as I get my hands on it, but in the meantime here's the Life magazine article (December 9, 1940) that brought Charlie Low's Forbidden City to national attention. A scan of the original is available here.
BTW, the two dancers with the lassos at top are Mary Mammon (left) and Dorothy Sun (right), who also appear in the photo just beneath. Closing this post is the inimitable Jadin Wong. I'll have more to share about these ladies in the coming weeks.
Finally, for an interesting and nuanced examination of the Orientalism served up at the Forbidden City nightclub, check out Anthony Lee's book Picturing Chinatown: Art and Orientalism in San Francisco (2001). As he writes, "The acts played on the distinction between the race of the performer and the race being performed in ways that revealed the contingency and malleability of both."
As a matter of fact, this strategy harkened back to the early days of vaudeville when Chinese American entertainers, like Lee Tung Foo and Jue Quon Tai, carved out a niche for themselves on the stage and in the public eye by performing a unique blend of yellowface and whiteface.
As you can see in the article below, Chinese American performers in the 1940s were still navigating the conflicting expectations of what it meant to be a Chinese living in America.
Life Goes to the "Forbidden City" San Franciscans pack Chinatown's No. 1 night club
At 363 Sutter Street in San Francisco stands "Forbidden City", the No. 1 all-Chinese night club in the U.S. Here each evening Californians flock to watch a talented floor show that ranges from slumberous oriental moods to hot Western swing. San Francisco is numerically ill-equipped with Broadway-style cabarets. Its citizenry eats at home, dances at hotels. When "Forbidden City" opened two years ago, it filled a local cultural need. It has prospered ever since.
In decor, "Forbidden City" blandly jumbles rice-paper screens, lighted fishbowls, college colors and football trophies. Somehow the net result is satisfactory. Its tri-nightly floor show as blandly scrambles congas, tangos, tap numbers and snaky stuff from the Far East. Chinese girls have an extraordinary aptitude for Western dance forms. As singers, not many achieve success according to occidental standards. But slim of body, trim of leg, they dance to any tempo with a fragile charm distinctive to their race. Opposite you see gracious Jadine Wong performing her chaste "Dance of the Moon Goddess".
In preparation for her role as legendary Malaysian burlesque performer Rose Chan, actress-model Christy Yow recently spent four hours overcoming her fear of snakes by making friends with a 3-meter, 9-kilogram albino python.
Wrestling pythons was one of Rose Chan's specialties and the highlight of her show. According to a news item that appeared in the U.S. press, Rose even took out "a license for a six foot long monitor lizard to brighten up [her] act" (Chicago Daily Tribune, March 22, 1957). This was just months after she reportedly lost consciousness when one of her 6-meter pythons coiled itself around her body (The Waco News-Tribune, December 27, 1956). It evidently took a full five minutes for Rose's "brawny stagehands" to free her from the python's stranglehold!
Last week I told you about the anonymous fan who offered Christy S$50,000 to strip at a charity screening (of her new movie Auntie Lucy) that she personally initiated in order to raise money for Pets Villa, a volunteer-run shelter for Singapore's stray cats and dogs. Christy had reportedly dared the fan to show up at the event, saying that she would strip if he brought the money as promised. Later she told the press that she was only joking and would never use sex to sell charity.
After the man's prurient proposal was published in a local newspaper, he immediately emailed Christy to apologize and asked how he could make amends. Christy suggested that he buy tickets for underprivileged seniors so that they could attend the screening. The shamed fan paid S$4,500 for 300 tickets, which allowed groups from the Geylang Old Folks' Home and two local senior citizens clubs to join in the fun.
Here's a photo from the October 31st event showing Christy Yow with Eric Khoo, director of the forthcoming Rose Chan film (which is scheduled for production sometime next year).
And here's Honey, one of the current residents of Pets Villa and, no doubt, a big fan of Christy!
* Photo of Christy Yow from The Daily Chilli; photo of Rose Chan from the Soft Film eBay Archive; photos of Eric Khoo, Christy Yow, and Honey from Homeless In Seletar
Two weeks ago I posted about the casting of model Christy Yow in Eric Khoo's upcoming biopic about Rose Chan, Malaysia's legendary "Queen of Striptease".
Well, it seems that Christy is already experiencing what it's like to be Rose Chan. A week before the recent charity premiere of her debut film Auntie Lucy in Singapore, Christy received an anonymous email from a "fan" promising to donate S$50,000 (US$36,000) to the Animal Lovers League if she stripped at the event.
"Since she has to strip for the [Rose Chan] movie sooner or later, if she is willing to do it that day, I will donate S$50,000," the sender wrote.
Asked for a comment, Christy said, "The sender should not have made the request. This is humiliating [to] me. You should not ask for returns when it comes to charity."
Nevertheless, Christy was reported as saying that if the sender had the courage to attend the show, then she would strip. But she added, "I can only show my back."
She also allegedly made a counter-offer. "If the person donates this sum of money, I will discuss with the director of Mei Gui Xiang [The Charming Rose] to let him view our shooting."
Is all this just a clever PR stunt, or is it a case of life imitating art imitating life?
Besides her reputation as "Queen of Striptease", Rose Chan was also renowned as "Queen of Charity" because she often donated part of the proceeds from her performances to charities, such as orphanages, homes for the elderly, institutions for the blind, and sanatoria for tuberculosis patients.
No word yet on whether Christy actually bared her back for Singapore's orphan cats and dogs, but as she rapidly becomes Southeast Asia's hottest sex symbol, she might consider growing some thorns to protect herself from the wolves.
Back in May I posted about director/producer Eric Khoo's search for an actress to play Rose Chan in his upcoming biopic about Malaysia's legendary "Queen of Striptease". After looking for a year and a half, he has finally chosen Christy Yow, a Malaysian model who caused quite a stir last December when she appeared in a bikini on the cover of FHM Singapore and was quickly dubbed "36C Christy" by the local tabloid press.
Christy is certainly sexy enough, but it remains to be seen whether she has the necessary chutzpah to portray the indomitable Rose Chan, who besides stripping was famous for wrestling pythons and having motorcycles ride over her.
Production on the film is scheduled to start late next year in Shanghai. Here's wishing Christy great success in channeling Rose's wild spirit!
A couple of weeks ago, there was an article featured on the HKMDB Daily News about Singaporean director Eric Khoo's film project about the life of legendary burlesque performer Rose Chan. Evidently, he is having a difficult time finding the right actress to play the role. According to Eric, the actress should have "the sultry lips of Shu Qi, the voluptuous figure of Fiona Xie, the height of Beatrice Chia, and the poise and complexion of Gong Li. Hopefully, she can also act like Maggie Cheung and can tell jokes like Irene Ang." And furthermore, according to another article from last year, the candidate must speak both Mandarin and Cantonese and be comfortable with nudity and snake handling!
That seems like a pretty tall order, but then again Rose Chan was a pretty extraordinary individual. You can read more about her life at Wikipedia. And here is a medley of amusing news items about Rose that I found in the American press, supplemented by some photos that I downloaded from eBay.
ARTY
Dancer Rose Chan writhes in a snake "costume" that has stirred up a furor in Penang, Malaya. Her costume is mostly grease paint striped over her body, which is clothed only in a Bikini bathing suit. The Malayan government has been asked to ban her costume and sexy dance, which Rose claims is "art" copied from dances in U.S. movies. She's five feet, five inches tall and measures 36-24-36½.
—The Frederick Post, November 7, 1955
STRIP TEASER VICTIM OF LOW-DOWN THIEF
PENANG, North Malaya — Chinese strip teaser Rose Chan said the audience that clamored for a better view of her figure Monday night included at least one cad.
She told police she removed the top half of her scanty, two-piece costume in response to popular demand but said someone promptly stole it.
—The Provo Daily Herald, November 15, 1955
Entertainer Ordered Not to Use Pythons
ALOR STAR, North Malaya, Dec. 26 — Kedah state police ordered buxom stripper Rose Chan Wednesday to stop wrestling with pythons in her night club act.
One of her 21-foot pets coiled itself around her body three days ago and caused her to become unconscious. It took brawny stagehands five minutes to free her.
—The Waco News-Tribune, December 27, 1956
Malaya Stripper Insures 'Assets'
SINGAPORE — Malaya's pioneer strip tease artist, Rose Chan, said today she has insured her curves for 100,000 Malayan dollars ($33,000).
The buxom stripper took out an insurance policy in preparation for her trip to Paris in May to compete in the international "Miss Strip Tease" contest.
—The Hayward Daily Review, March 29, 1957
BARE LESSONS
KUALA LUMPUR — Miss Rose Chan, Malaya's best known strip teaser, will soon be going to Japan to make a film on strip shows.
She said negotiations are now under way for making of the film in which she will appear with three other girls of her striptease troupe.
"I have trained all these girls in the art of undressing in public," she said pointing to them. "Before they came to me they did not even know how to move gracefully."
—Burlington Daily Times-News, May 22, 1957
PEEP SHOW GETS PERMIT
IPOH, Malaya — The Rose Chan striptease show has permission to perform here, thanks to Dr. W. Holmes, acting head of the town council. Issuing the permit, he told the council: "There is a tendency in every male to be something of a Peeping Tom. It is perhaps better this way (the striptease show) than to have people peep into your bedrooms at night."
Several weeks ago, I posted about Chun Siu-lei, who introduced burlesque elements into Cantonese opera during the late 1940s and early 50s. After learning about her antics, the following scene from the sequel to Prince of Thieves (1958) suddenly made sense to me — well, as much sense as can possibly be made from the appearance in a Cantonese opera film of a silver-painted exotic dancer and a mummy bearing a magical apple!
Prince of Thieves wasn't your run-of-the-mill Cantonese opera movie. It was a remake of Ma Sze-Tsang's famous Westernized stage opera The Vagabond Prince, which was adapted from Douglas Fairbanks' Thief of Bagdad (1924) and first translated to the silver screen by Ma himself in 1939. As a matter of fact, Ma Sze-Tsang had met Fairbanks sometime in 1931-32, when Ma was engaged for an 18-month run at the Mandarin Theater in San Francisco. Perhaps it was his sojourn on Gold Mountain that "corrupted" him, but Ma fell in love with Hollywood movies and took it upon himself to modernize Chinese opera by incorporating Western elements. In 1934 he established the Chuen Kou [Global] Film Company with the help of overseas Chinese investors. The following year he made his first film, Scent of Wild Flowers (1935), a remake of the Sternberg-Dietrich classic The Blue Angel. His next film was Opera Stars and Song Girls (1935), which was modeled on Hollywood's backstage musicals. The film included an opera highlight performed in modern dress and also featured dancing girls in sexy costumes.
Later in his life, Ma Sze-Tsang criticized these early experiments and advocated a return to tradition. In 1955 he moved to the People's Republic of China with his wife, opera star Hung Sin-nui, and became head of an opera training school in Guangzhou, where he taught until his death in 1964.
Meanwhile, back in Hong Kong, the bastardization of Cantonese opera that Ma had pioneered was being continued by director Luk Bong with his remake of Prince of Thieves, starring Ho Fei-fan and Mui Yee. The film and subsequent sequel were so popular that Luk Bong was engaged by Shaw Brothers to make a series of similarly styled Occidentalist fantasies starring Patricia Lam Fung and Pearl Au Ka-wai: Glass Slippers (1960), The Talking Bird (1959), Ali Baba and the 40 Robbers (1960), and The Sleeping Beauty (1960).
Okay, okay... I know... you just want to see the silver dancer, the mummy, and the magic apple. Here you go...
References Law Kar, "The American Connection in Early Hong Kong Cinema", The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity (2002).
Evidently, Forbidden City dancer Noel Toy wasn't the only Chinese burlesque performer to get her start at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition. I was surprised to discover recently that Chun Siu-lei, Cantonese cinema's premiere sex symbol during the early 50s, also learned a few tricks there.
According to Law Kar in his article "The American Connection in Early Hong Kong Cinema", Chun Siu-lei traveled to the United States to perform with an acrobatic troupe at the expo. (If her birth date of May 13, 1925 in the Hong Kong Film Archive's online catalog is to be believed, that would mean she was just 14 years old at the time!) During her stay, she befriended an American performer named Helena who taught her burlesque dancing, contortionist techniques, and "other tricks".
In an oral history interview, excerpted in the HKFA's Newsletter #7 (February, 1999), Chun Siu-lei elaborates on her experience in San Francisco.
In 1939, there was an inaugural ceremony of the Golden Gate Bridge and many acrobatic troupes and performers were invited to take part. The head of the Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe, Au-yeung Fat, passed through Hong Kong to select a young girl performer. He saw me in Hua Mulan where I performed tricks with a bronze rod and did a sword dance and he praised my performance. After performing in America for several months, I was curious or otherwise bored and that was what led me to see how the Westerners perform acrobatics. I met a lady coach and thus I was trained in the 'body-bending' technique. I studied for three months and I also learned other tricks.
While it isn't explicitly stated what the "other tricks" were that Chun Siu-lei learned during her journey to the West, one can make a pretty good guess based on her subsequent career in Hong Kong.
After several years of war, we were all extremely gloomy and so we didn't want to make sad and tragic films. Being young and fearless, I did this seduction scene in Lady Tan Kei and the Hill of Flesh* (1949) where I put on a sexy costume, and this caused a sensation. At the time, stage people were very conservative. Women were either playing chaste wives or magnanimous lady knights. No one would expect them to put on erotic costumes.
Chun Siu-lei in her first film, Lady Tan Kei and the Hill of Flesh.
Chun Siu-lei's first appearance on the silver screen was an adaptation of her enormously popular Cantonese opera play, Lady Tan Kei and the Hill of Flesh. Tan Kei (or Daji) was the concubine of King Zhou, the last ruler of the Shang Dynasty. Although she was a historical figure, her portrayals have ranged from sadistic femme fatale to righteous avenging daughter. What's clear is that she was a powerful symbol of female power that evoked either fear and disgust or respect and understanding. An example of the later is her portrayal by Lin Dai in Last Woman of Shang (1964). I'm not sure where Chun Siu-lei's rendition fits into this spectrum, but I imagine that she knew how to play both aspects to maximum effect.
Chun's next film after Lady Tan Kei and the Hill of Flesh was Sex to Kill the Devil (1949), which sounds like it could have been a 1990s "Category III" movie. Indeed, one review complained that the film's unnaturally developed story and irrationally arranged sequences were "tuned only towards one objective: sex and the exposure of flesh."
Her third film was The Woman General Muk Kwai-ying (1949), about the Song Dynasty heroine who defended China against the Western Xia Dynasty. Shaw Brothers fans will recognize this story from its 1972 movie adaptation, The 14 Amazons, which featured Ivy Ling Po as the lady general. Chun Siu-lei played the role of another legendary woman warrior in her fifth film, Story of Fan Lihua (1949), which was retold in 1968 with Connie Chan in the title role.
In between those two movies was Romance of Rome Palace (1949), an Occidentalist erotic tale about a beautiful queen and a playboy king. BTW, all of these movies, and several of her later ones, were directed by But Fu, about whom I know absolutely nothing. But based on his films with Chun Siu-lei, and some intriguing titles from his filmography like Charlie Chan's Battle of Wits Against the Black Bully (1948), I'd love to know more about him.
Romance of Rome Palace (1949)
Chun Siu Lei's first few films are typical of what made her famous throughout her career. She specialized in playing strong and/or sexy women in a variety of genres from bastardized Cantonese opera and Occidental costume fantasies to martial-arts movies and contemporary urban comedies. Chun was so popular (obviously with male moviegoers, but perhaps with the ladies as well) that she made 22 films in 1950 and 22 again in 1951. The selling point for many of her movies seems to have been her burlesque-inflected dance numbers. In The Sword and the Pearl (1951), Chun even performed a snake dance — one of her specialties!
The Sword and the Pearl aka Ali Baba (1951)
Needless to say, I would love to see any of Chun Siu-lei's films, but if I had to choose just one, it would have to be The Battle Between the Handsome Hero and the Wild Girl (1950). The following description from the HKFA catalog makes it sound like some whacked-out mo lei tau film from the 90s.
The Handsome Master subdues the bandit Ku Lo-keung. Lo-keung's associate, Ngau Chun-hung tries to even the score by joining forces with the Wild Girl [played by Chun Siu-lei of course]. The Wild Girl uses her 'soul-luring whip' to seduce the Handsome Master and makes Suet-dip, wife of the Handsome Master, become jealous. Using gadgets invented by Dr Sze, such as a laser light box, flying boots, power pills, a transformation machine and other contraptions, the Handsome Master comes out the victor in all his encounters with the villain. Chun-hung, defeated, jumps off the cliff, while the Wild Girl is transformed into a virtuous woman.
Chun Siu-lei's film output began to slow down after 1952. Perhaps she was too much of a good thing and audiences had become satiated by her extreme "soul-luring" sexiness. Without a doubt, she was one of Hong Kong cinema's sourest beauties. Just one look at her makes my mouth pucker!
Maybe it's just her flared nostrils or the way she bares her teeth, but Chun Siu-lei reminds me of one of Hollywood's own sour beauties: the legendary Mae West. Both were strong ladies, unashamed of their sexuality, who tested the limits of censorship and challenged cultural conservatism in their respective cultures.
In 1958, Chun Siu-lei returned one last time to her famous role as the concubine Tan Kei, and thanks to the wonders of YouTube, we can sample a taste of what drove audiences again and again to see the undisputed burlesque queen of the Cantonese screen and stage.
Chun Siu-lei in The New Lady Tan Kei and the Hill of Flesh (1958)
*I have decided to adopt and adapt Law Kar's translation of 肉山藏妃己 as Lady Tan Kei and the Hill of Flesh rather than the awkward-sounding translation used in the HKFA's online catalog, Tan Kei in the Meat Hill. The 1958 version, 新肉山藏妃己, translates as The New Lady Tan Kei and the Hill of Flesh.
References Law Kar, "The American Connection in Early Hong Kong Cinema", The Cinema of Hong Kong: History, Arts, Identity (2002).
