Forbidden City, U.S.A. (1989) - full transcript

♪jazzy music♪

♪jazzy swing music♪

-[Pat] In '39 and '40 in the
beginning of World War II we had

people willing and able to spend
money for the first time after

The Depression
enjoying entertainment.

It became a Liberty Port --
San Fransisco did -- we have all

Armed Services here --
and they got liberty,

and so they went
to the nightclubs.

So, it was wonderful for
business and for show business

particularly.

Then when you come to having
something unusual like Forbidden



City with Chinese entertainment
-- which they've never seen.

I mean, they came from the
Middle West -- they'd never even

seen a Chinese let
alone a Chinese performer.

-There had not been a Chinese
nightclub in America until that

time.

I was first to build a Chinese
bar in San Fransisco and then I

was the first to build a Chinese
night club -- not only in San

Fransisco but in all of America.

♪swing music♪

[applause]

-Forbidden City was a
curiosity, a novelty,

it was exotic, it was...

universally well-known.

-Quite a scandalous place to
be going because you had the



showgirls who were only partly
dressed with skimpy costumes and

so on.

So this would be kind
of a daring place to go.

[laughs]

-Everyday's a
different kind fo funny.

-Yeah, it was a lot of fun....

-No kidding.

-No kidding.

Always something going on.

-Always something going
on, wasn't this or that,

this or that.

♪♪♪

-Of course what we did in the
30s and 40s were shocking to the

Chinese community and confusing
for the caucasian people.

-They've never seen oriental
do this type of singing and

dancing.

This was something new for
everybody even for ourselves it

was new.

-No one took us very seriously
until Forbidden City opened its

doors.

So we said, "Come on, let's
show the world our stuff."

♪♪♪

-At Forbidden City we used to
get letters from Chinese people

telling us that we should be
ashamed of ourselves doing what

we do for a living --
dancing in a night club,

showing our legs -- we
should get a decent job and be

respectable.

♪swing music♪

-[Mary] Girls were taught
to grow up and keep house.

We were supposed to get married
at a certain time and we were

supposed to know how to
take care of the house,

take care of the children
and take care of your husband.

We didn't have ballet lessons,
we didn't have piano lessons

when we were kids -- this was
just not part of the Chinese

culture.

-Any oriental boy that went into
show business the same thing

like an oriental girl going into
show business...the community

thought there was
something wrong with them.

If your father was a grocer,
when he passes away he expects

you to keep running the grocery
store...you follow in your

father's footsteps.

I suppose my father
hadn't passed away,

and I finished school
and became a pharmacist,

a pill roller.

You know what I mean?

Oh God, I'd be bored stiff.

♪swing music♪

[dancing]

Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.

-In the 30s and 40s the Chinese
people are very close-minded,

they're sure that anyone in show
business have to be absolutely

insane, immoral, and
everything else that's bad.

-The old-fashioned type,
they didn't care for the modern

Chinese -- which we were in
modern dress and attire to

perform in a modern American way
-- that they just didn't realize

and didn't understand.

-Fortunately we lived in this
small time where we didn't have

all these old-time
Chinese on top of us, you know?

That was to our advantage.

That's how come we were
a little more liberated.

♪jazzy swing music♪

-I was born in a small ton in
Arizona -- Clifton -- Clifton,

Arizona -- and we had to mingle
with all the other population

which mostly were whites.

Our traditions were
the American traditions,

this is what we
learned in school.

Our Chinese traditions
were not really that strong.

-In Inverness we were the
only Chinese family there so

consequently that's one of the
reasons I don't know too many

Chinese.

So I was brought up
purely caucasian western,

and it wasn't until I went to a
junior college that I looked and

I saw an oriental,
and I said, "My gosh,

there's an oriental over there!"

[laughs]

I never thought
of myself as one.

♪♪♪

-Growing up at that time we
would get in a little hustles,

tussles.

They would call us
[chuckles] say "chinks,"

then we would fight.

In those days I used to
fight them with my brothers.

They called us "chinks"
and we called them a name.

[laughing] I won't
say what, but we do.

We have to retaliate, you see?

We'd get our exercise that way
-- bricks rolling and so forth

-- chasing each other.

-And they used to
ask me questions.

They said, "What
nationality are you?"

I says, "I'm chop
suey," and they go,

" What do you mean
'chop suey?'" And says,

"Well, you know, the dish
is a mixture of everything,"

I says, "I'm
Portuguese, Spanish,

and Fillipino and Chinese,"
and that was it...chop suey.

-Now that I think back to
it I think the people in my

generation we really are very
lucky to be in that generation

because I think it's such a
wonderful blend of our Chinese

and our American ideas.

♪jazzy music♪

[bowling sounds]

♪♪♪

-[Mary] I suppose being more
Americanized that our thoughts

might have been a little
different or our goals might

have been a little
different...and what we wanted

to do was something that wasn't
being done by the orientals.

♪jazzy samba music♪

-[Larry] I was
inspired by Frank Sinatra.

Most of the songs I sang when
I first came over was mostly

Hawaiian songs and not very many
of the popular songs...but when

I heard him sing I
wanted to sing like him.

-Listened to the radio and
I would sing along with the

radio...thought, "Gee,
this is pretty snappy."

I kept it a secret of
my desire to sing...

never sang in public.

-Oh yeah, my mom wanted to know
where I went and I told her that

I saw Fred Astaire five
times at the Variety Theater.

She understands.

She was lenient to me.

She says, "Well,
that's the case,

but don't tell your father."

♪♪♪

-[Noel] I don't know how
I had the nerve to do it,

but I did it.

I think I must have been sort of
a rebel also because I wanted to

be different.

-People have callings
for certain things,

I just had to, it was in me.

It's like, people
climb mountains,

it's there, they climb it.

So I had to dance.

♪orchestral music♪

-[woman] Meet the oriental
salute to Spring on California's

sunny strand.

Leagues of San Fransisco's
Chinatown hail the season with

an age old dance.

♪oriental music♪

But wait a minute, buttonless
tops with honorable ancestors no

longer appeals to
Miss Chinatown of today,

she's going modern in
no uncertain manner.

Well, well, this is a surprise.

Decorous daughters of the
east becoming streamline glamour

girls of the west who can
step with the best of them.

What would Confucius say?

♪swing music♪

-I'm from Stockton which is a
very boring provincial town....

With people
extremely square and bias.

When I start to dance everybody
in the town thought I'd

absolutely gone to the dogs
and my family was insane.

-[Dorothy] I'm a Japanese
American born in San Fransisco,

raised in Los Angles.

My mother was one of those woman
that were very modern in those

days, and all our relatives
and all her friends said to her,

"I think it's disgraceful that
you're sending your daughter to

dancing school."

They don't do
those kinds of things,

but my mother was determined
that she wanted me to take

dancing lessons, and so
therefore I continued dancing

lessons for many many years.

[gong]

-[man] The time has
come to pick up your feet.

So start in dancing
and turn on the heat.

[gong]

♪swing music♪

-My father...

he didn't react at all.

He didn't care for
me dancing 'cause,

you know, we lived in Paolo Alto
-- that's only three miles to

Stanford.

I'm the oldest and he
expect me to go to Stanford.

So one day he walked in the
kitchen here I am practicing

dancing with a chair.

Now, he sees this and
surprisingly he goes to my

mother and says, "You
know our number one son?

Something wrong somewhere."

♪♪♪

[applause]

♪♪♪

♪drum roll♪

♪swing music♪

-My father was always playing
music around the house -- he

plays the ukulele and a mandolin
and guitar -- so we used to have

group of Hawaiian boys
always at the house,

kind of like what you would
call a "Hawaiian jam session."

As I remember way back I've
always sang -- you know --

always enjoy singing -- and just
thought of just very natural so

into it.

♪"I'm Stepping Out With a Memory
Tonight" performed by Frances

Chun♪

-My dancing lessons were seeing
movies of Eleanor Powell...

and of the one great number
I saw her do was in 'Broadway

Melody of 1936' when
she danced without music,

and I came home and I practiced
and practiced until I got the

thing down pat.

From then on every time she
made a movie that was a dancing

lesson for me.

[tapping]

♪jazzy orchestral music♪

-I planned to go
away and join the show.

My father, of
course, won't hear of it.

So, I plan and the night I was
running away from home I had to

climb out a window -- I can't go
through the front door -- and I

thought nobody knew,
especially my mom.

So I was climbing
out of the window,

she reaches into her jacket and
she gave me $40 -- which was a

lot of money in those days.

She says, "You may need this.

Be careful."

That really shook me up.

♪jazzy music♪

-So I hitchhike from Paolo Alto
to Los Angeles after I graduate

from Palo Alto High School.

-I went to Hollywood.

I was very young,
very dumb and no money.

-When I got there I
didn't know what to do,

where to go to get
a job as a dancer.

-Walked into these
agents offices...

"Well, don't call
us, we'll call you."

-But if a white boy came in he'd
get the job first before me.

-We had to be much better than
the American dance team -- the

caucasian -- or else we
wouldn't get the bookings.

-They said, "We'll use
you on Chinese New Year's."

"That's once a year!

Do you use Italians on Italian
New Year and Jewish people and

Jewish New Year?

Now, come on!"

I would get awfully hungry.

-I started...as a cocktail
waitress in a little bar-- I

think I was about 17
at the time or 18.

-And then this fellow
that owns the bar asked me,

he said, "You want to
be a singing bartender?"

I says, "Singing bartender?"

I say, "What do I do?"

-I was -- to use the old
expression -- I was to go out

and "hustle" the customers for
songs in order to make tips.

-I had a little
trouble at first.

Some of the musicians didn't
want a Chinese girl in the band

I guess.

-They were just not educated the
fact that we had any talent in

any other field, I
supposed, cook or laundry boy.

-After traveling around I
finally wound up in San

Fransisco because I had heard
about this Chinese club which

featured Chinese entertainers
and it was called the Forbidden

City.

-[man] Good evening
ladies and gentlemen,

this is San Fransisco
after dark...wonderful,

fascinating San Fransisco.

This is Sutter
Street, and its showtime.

Perhaps as yet you have not
quite made up your mind as to

just where you're going on
your vacation this year.

Well, this woman knows
exactly where she is going.

She is one of the dancing
stars of Charlie Low's fabulous

Forbidden City in San Fransisco.

Her name is Mai Tai Sing, and
she's America's most beautiful

Chinese entertainer...and
Mai Tai Sing knows great

entertainment when she sees it.

♪romantic orchestral music♪

-Let's see.

Let's go back to the
Forbidden City days...

it opened up in, what, December?

I think it was December '38.

It more or less I think gave
us all a chance to get into the

business.

-It was hard, you
know, it wasn't easy,

but somewhere along the line
there's always someone to help

you break the ice.

If they give you a chance to
prove yourself...then you're

fine...

but you have to be
given that chance.

-Good evening
friends, I am Charlie Low,

your host at Forbidden
City in San Fransisco.

You have just met Mai
Tai Sing and Tony Wing,

two young people from the
all-star Chinese review here at

the nation's most unusual and
outstanding oriental nightclub.

-[laughs] Always trying
to be the fashion nice guy.

San Fransisco -- and
other states as well,

other cities as well -- have not
seen a Chinese nightclub with an

all Chinese floor show, and the
time was ripe for something like

that.

I had a lot of criticism about
it because Chinese will say,

"Chinese people don't
drink hard liquor,"

and they were totally wrong.

We catered mostly
to white trade.

The old-fashioned
Chinese in Chinatown have no

foresight...satisfied in their
little business...run it for

maybe 30/40 years, but
I'm a little different.

Came from Nevada
at a young age...

I had vision, different ideas
and thoughts in the back of my

head...

I knew I would have
a lot of trouble,

a lot of hard work in recruiting
a good Chinese floor show,

but I was quite lucky.

-When the call came for
girls to join a chorus lines,

the girls form out
of town applied.

The Chinese families in San
Fransisco looked down on such

things, and the girls there
didn't apply so we ere the only

game in town.

-As I said, we weren't
very experienced dancers,

you know, we were
just mediocre dancers,

but to the public we were cute.

[laughs]

We got away with murder
to tell you the truth.

-Oh yes, we did have a
lot of fun with the girls.

-We did indeed!

-Because all our lives we
had had real dancers...

at the Moxie
Theater and the Warfield.

We had trained dancers and then
to come into the Forbidden City

and these darling
Chinese girls that tried.

-[Stan] They tried so hard.

-[Pat] They really tried.

See Charlie wanted us to do the
precision like things because he

had seen the shows at the
Warfield Theater and we had a 16

line and everybody
loved all the tiller work.

So that's what we
were trying to do.

We were trying to do what we
have always done to Charlie.

Well, that was a thing.

-Mm-hm.

-And then the drummer...

They had to do the down beat on
the hop and the kick is on the

upbeat, well they had never
heard of an upbeat and a down

beat.

-[laughs]

So I had to teach them.

I had to teach the drummer had
to catch the kick at the top of

the beat.

Various things like this...

-But it was fun.

-Very few people understand
[laughs] this is what goes to

make part of the show.

♪jazzy swing music♪

-I was using my mother's maiden
name -- I was using Tony Costa

-- and then when I went to work
there Charlie says that he had

to change my name to a
Chinese name 'cause he says,

"After all," he says, "We're
advertising all-oriental review

-- Chinese review," and I
says, "Can I be a Wong?"

And he says, "No,
you got to be a Wing.

There's too many
Wongs in this show now,

Gladys Wong..."

He's naming all the Wongs.

He says, "I have to
have a different name."

So that's how I got
the name of Tony Wing.

♪"Some of These Days"
performed by Toy Yat Mar♪

-[Toy] I was labeled as a
Chinese Sophie Tucker.

People likened me to
her style of entertaining.

I really didn't care too
much for the label so to speak,

but it was commercial
so I stuck with it.

♪♪♪

[applause]

-And then Charlie
asked me again,

and I says, "Okay,
I'll work for you,

but what do I have to do?"

He says, "You have
to buy a tuxedo,

you have to wear a
stiff shirt and a bowtie,"

and I says, "That's
all, I don't want that.

If I'm going to sing I'm
going to go that way I am,"

and he says, "No you
can't it's a nightclub.

Everybody has to
dress like that."

I says, "I monkey suit?

You're crazy!

I will never work
in a monkey suit."

♪"How High The Moon"
performed by Larry Ching♪

-When I started to work at
the Forbidden City as a pianist

there the business was
very bad at that point.

Then came the idea with Mr Steel
-- the PR man -- that suggested

the idea of the
Chinese bubble dancer...

and then Charlie
Low bought that idea.

-Oh, yes!

Chinese Sally
Rand, very popular.

She was a coed in UC Berkley

-- a UC coed --
and she was a

junior over there.

She was born and
raised in Inverness,

California -- just over in Marin
County -- and she was young and

beautiful.

-The poor girl never danced.

She walked around for three
choruses -- which is a long time

in music -- holding a bubble
or holding a pair of fans,

and people were laughing and
hysterical at her because it's a

very long time.

Only thing when
it comes to turns,

she would lose her balance -- it
was hard with two 25 pound fans

-- and she would fall on the
tables and put her finger on

people's chow mien
and say, "Excuse me,

is this okay?"

"Help yourself."

So Charlie said to me -- he
called everybody Susie --

"Susie, you got to stop that.

She's falling
all over the table."

"She'll learn."

-When I first
performed I think I was numb.

[laughs]

I think I was scared silly
too...because I had never done

anything like that before.

[laughs]

I knew if I wanted to get
ahead I had to attract enough

attention to get publicity.

So I purposely, I think, did a
lot of things that I normally

would not have done.

-They used the line "is it
true what they say about Chinese

girls?"

There was an old standard joke
that had gone around for years

and years about their sex being
different than caucasian gal,

you see.

So a lot of people...I really
think they kind of believe it.

They say, "We'll
see for ourselves."

[coughs]

"We'll come up and see this girl
and see if she's any different

than anybody else."

[laughs]

That's the way it
all got started.

-They would all laugh.

I was always being ripped
by friends and other people,

and I always took it
good-naturedly -- I didn't get

annoyed at it -- and
I'd play along with it.

They say, "Is it true what
they say about Chinese girls?"

And I say, "Oh, sure.

Didn't you know?"

[laughs]

It's just like
eating corn on the cob.

[laughs]

-And from that day on they were
all the way out to the street,

the people just came in
there by the hundreds.

So that was how the
place got started.

If it wouldn't have been for
that idea I think we would have

probably gone out of
business entirely.

-And of course night
clubbing was the thing.

There were several very good
clubs in town and they were all

patronized by the servicemen,
but I think they came to the

Forbidden City
because we were different.

The Chinese line was a
novelty and the Chinese girls,

I guess, were looked upon as
being exotic and mysterious

and...

So business picked up
and we started a boom.

♪sustained drum roll♪

[applause]

♪cheerful brass music♪

Cute little Chinese dolls.

Oh yes, we were told by the
servicemen we were all wanted

dates and whatnot.

We'd sit outside with
them between shows...

have our little sodas...

sometimes we'd
have a bite to eat...

we were just like
ordinary people.

What they thought I think more
amused me more than anything

else because I thought
of myself as an American.

-[woman] Good evening
ladies and gentlemen,

welcome to Charlie
Low's Forbidden City.

♪jazzy music♪

-Everybody who came into town,
that was one of the places they

headed for because they heard
the Forbidden City had great

food, great
entertainment, great music,

they could dance all
night if they wished to.

-Forbidden City used to serve a
dinner for a dollar and a half,

right?

-Dollar.

-A Dollar!

-Saturday, dollar-and-a-half.

-Saturday,
dollar-and-a-half...for dinner!

♪♪♪

-The nightclub was so busy we
clocked at 2200 a day in and

out.

The bar was -- not to exaggerate
-- it was four deep...four deep

all night long.

-To see Chinese girls performing
very similar to a westerner was

quite exciting.

-Peyton Place...it
was worse than that.

[laughs]

I never sing.

Larry and Vicky are married.

A lot of the kids are
married, but...gee-whiz!

-A lot of drinking
and fooling around.

[laughs]

Not all bad.

That was the life,
boy, let me tell you.

♪jazzy music♪

-Did he know how to run a club.

-He was such a good table hopper
[laughs] because he talked to

everybody.

He talked to each
table...everybody that came in

was a friend.

He treated them all very much
as if he had known them forever.

-A lot of big shots
he was talking to.

A lot of show people talk.

A lot of big shots
too...like Bing Crosby,

you know, Bob Hope,
you know, all those...

-You've seen that wall.

♪♪♪

-I definitely felt the
location was wonderful,

it was close enough to Chinatown
that you felt when they said

Forbidden City and Chinese
entertainment that you were

going to see it because you had
to walk up and Sutter was only a

couple blocks away from
the actual Chinatown.

You felt secure.

You didn't feel
unsafe on Sutter Street.

-A lot of caucasian people came
there naturally because they

wouldn't go over to Chinatown
because for one thing it was

hard to park in there and also
it was mostly an entire Chinese

community.

So they hadn't gotten used
to that kind of a mix yet,

you see?

-They were afraid of the dark,
they've heard about the Tung

wars -- which was years and
years ago -- but this is up to

date and they're now going
to experience first hand.

They can look out here
comes a knife or something.

-They invented a serious Chinese
thing even though it was a

nightclub they expected what
they saw in Chinese opera and

the things that you
had seen in pictures.

-They had these images that
oriental people were a little

more mystical, you know?

Maybe the cues down the back,
and the slippers and the little

robes of some sort and the fans.

-The caucasians' perception of
Chinese entertainers in those

days was very interesting to me
because they've always viewed

Chinese in a very
stereotype manner.

♪oriental inflected jazzy music♪

-[speaking jibberish]

-[all] Fooy.

-On a couple of
occasions I've heard people say,

"Chinese jazz?

They don't have any rhythm...

and their legs are terrible.

[laughs]

They've got terrible legs.

I think they're bow-legged."

-Hey, speak English?

Say baby, how do you say "give
me a little kiss" in Chinese?

-Scram?

[laughter]

-What's the difference, the
dame's probably got bow legs

anyway.

-Oh, yeah?

Is that so, you big bozo.

Bow legs, huh?

Listen to me.

♪"Chop Chop"
performed by Anna Chang♪

-Guys would come in
and say," That chink,"

they'd say, "That
chinaman," you know,

"That slant eye..."

Being in the business we
had to take some of that.

We're supposed to
take some of that,

but we don't.

-We were not anything different,
it's just that to show we were

able to present a package of
an all-Chinese entertainment...

American entertainment.

-[Toy] And now with your kind
indulgence we would like very

much to entertain you with
a song or two...and it goes

something like this.

[applause]

♪"When You're Smilin'"
performed by Toy Yat Mar♪

[applause]

♪♪♪

-It was a razzle
dazzle situation.

It was unbelievable because
they got sung by American music,

and it was kinda
like a half and half.

They expected something more
mystical like out of the orient

and then all of the sudden they
get this MC that's popping the

jokes and Charlie
was a "Hi, fellas.

How you doin'?"

You know, "Come on in."

They felt at home.

They loved it.

♪big band music♪

-[Dottie] It was a parody of
Little Egypt doing a snake

number with her hands.

You know, how your hands look
the shape of a snake and how the

snake would come after you, and
you get like that and look at

it.

Like me...the snake would look
at me and then go like that with

my eyes crossed, and I would
do a parody of Little Egypt.

♪♪♪

-I met Bobby and Mary they were
in the chorus in Forbidden City,

and Walton Bigastaff
was the choreographer,

and I suggested doing a trio.

I'd done all these
duos, I thought,

"Well, it will be
something different."

And they were very pretty, and
I designed the clothes so that

they both wore the same thing.

♪romantic music♪

I was the one in the middle.

I had to lift those two gals,
but they were very young and

light and we had a lot fo fun.

♪"Alexander's Ragtime Band"
performed by Toy Yat Mar♪

-We decided after working at
Charlie's for awhile that we

were experienced enough
to try to put some acts

together...expand our horizons
as far as entertainment was

concerned.

So we got ourselves an
agent and we booked ourselves.

We did a lot of
entertainment to the GIs,

we had all the Red Cross
work and we had the Stage Door

Canteen and we
saw a lot of bonds.

♪♪♪

It was very interesting playing
in little towns and what we

called "one night stands."

-Corpus
Christie...I said to my agent,

"How do you find these places!"

The town was so small
-- how small was it?

-- there wasn't a
Chinese restaurant.

Every town has a
Chinese restaurant,

not Corpus Christie!

I walked into town,
people followed me for blocks.

My producer thought
there was a parade.

[laughs]

At that time I was
black with bangs,

a china doll and
the chop sticks.

People would stop me
on the street and say,

"You speak-a English?"

I says, "No, not a damn word.

What do you want to know?"

-And I remember I was in a
town somewhere in Oklahoma and

somebody came up to me in a
club I was working in and said,

"Can I touch you?

I've never seen a
Chinese before,"

and he touched me.

[laughs]

I guess he expected us
to be very different,

you know, things like that.

-They thought we were so cute
and so dainty and....as one guy

put it, they thought if they
touched us we would break.

In other words, we
were little china dolls.

[laughs]

-I think the first
time I went down south,

I went with the show, and when I
got off the train station -- I

don't know if I should say this
or not [laughs] -- never been

exposed to the south -- so I
got off the train station and I

wanted to go to
the ladies' room.

So I went to the ladies' room
and I saw the sign says "Black"

and "White."

So I stood there
and I said, "Now,

where should I go?

Where do I belong?"

I was stunned for a while.

I didn't know they
had such things!

[laughs]

But you learn, you know?

So I thought, "Well, I'm not
black so I must go to the white

one."

[laughs]

-And I said to
Louise in Chinese,

"We're not black
and we're not white,

which one do we go in to?"

[laughs]

And she says, "Let's
go in the black one."

-I boarded the bus and no
sooner that I boarded the bus I

realized, "This is
segregated...where do you sit

Toy?"

I looked in the rear.

I looked at the front.

Fortunately, there was something
open in the middle of the

bus..."Okay, kid.

Go for it."

So I sat down in the
middle of the bus,

but nobody sat down beside me.

So, oh well.

One learns to let it roll off of
you when you feel discrimination

staring you in the face.

-Oh, yeah.

Sure.

There's always the white people
that come in they always have

something to say
about the Chinese,

especially during the war...

and some of them took us for
Japanese instead of Chinese,

and they would call us --
like they always do -- "yellow

belly," and all
that kind of stuff.

-There were quite a few
entertainers at that time who

were not Chineses per se,
they would be Japanese...

Portuguese...

mixtures...

some of the Japanese
entertainers were shipped off,

some of them had to flee town...

in order to avoid the camps.

I really don't much like looking
back at that period because it

was...to me it was very sad.

-During the World War II when
all the Japanese were being

interned in California, my
partner and I were in New York

and we received an offer
and a telegram it was okay,

we got this big deal to go to
Hollywood to be with Kay Kyser

in this movie, and we were so
happy over it because it would

have been a big break in
our show business life.

-And we received a phone call,
and the immigration officer

mentions that..."Understand
that Toy -- your partner -- is

Japanese and you must leave
California or she will have to

go to the internment
camp, that is the law now."

-And we ended up by going back
to New York and starting all the

way from scratch, and
it was very hard for us.

We had to start right
form the bottom again.

♪melancholic jazz music♪

♪upbeat jazz music♪

-After the war and into the 50s,
the night club business starting

going down hill mainly because
things started to change.

The boys came home.

They weren't interested
in going to nightclubs,

they were interested
in making a family.

People didn't want to spend
the money on entertainment --

particularly nightclubs,
theater...television.

-[Stan] And television
was in its infancy,

but people were staying home
watching to see what happened on

the set, and you had an awful
lot of competition from other

areas that didn't exist before.

-So it really hurt a
great deal for show business,

and particularly when you have a
wonderful thing like a novelty

like the Forbidden City
who really was a draw.

People really made an
effort to come and see.

They had no reason to go anymore
because they had already seen

Forbidden City.

They had already seen most
of the acts that were there.

-The novelty wore off.

It showed because we had about
six nightclubs in San Fransisco

-- in Chinatown -- and it ended
up with only the Forbidden City

and the Sky Room.

The Sky Room was
the last one to fold.

-We had to more or less
compete with the clubs that were

springing up at that time -- the
discos and the topless bars --

now I'm taking you into the 60s
-- the little go-go dancers...

On the other hand we had the
big Los Vegas shows -- the big

spectaculars that they were
putting on that was attracting

so many people -- and our shows
just couldn't compete with these

so -- as far as I was concerned
-- the end of an era of show

business.

[applause]

-And so ladies and gentlemen
that concludes the first edition

of our shows here at
the Forbidden City.

May I say to you one and
all that you have been a most

delightful audience and on
behalf of the cast and yours

truly, I'd like very
much to thank you.

[applause]

♪melancholic jazz music♪

-Well, I always wanted
to be an entertainer,

I wanted to sing, and I got
in with the rest of them.

I felt that I'm able to get into
the so-called job market of the

mainstream and prove myself that
I could do that regardless of

race or background.

♪"The Man I Love"
performed by Frances Chun♪

♪big band music♪

[applause]

-[Paul] Thank you very
much, ladies and gentlemen.

-[Dorothy] Thank you
very much everyone,

and now, ladies and gentlemen,
we'd like to give you a

presentation of a medley of the
favorites by that Yankee Doodle

man George M Cohan.

♪"George M Cohen Medley"
performed by Art Norkus and his

Orchestra♪

[applause]

Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.