Frances Fong

Frances Fong, born Frances Chung on September 22, 1927, in Honolulu in what was then the Territory of Hawaii, was an American singer, actress, and nightclub performer whose career extended across more than five decades. She died on October 24, 2012.

Fong was raised in Honolulu by parents Francis Chung and Emma Leong Chung, both of whom were born in Hawaii to Chinese immigrants. Her father began his working life repairing appliances as an electrician before rising to an executive position at a lumber company. Her mother took work as a packer in a pineapple cannery once the children were old enough for school. Fong had one older brother, and English was her only language throughout her upbringing. She attended Kalihi-weana Elementary School, Kalakaua Junior High School, and Roosevelt High School, where she participated in student government, volunteered in the school library, and was a member of the A Cappella Choir, the Swim Club, and the Allied Youth Organization, serving as the organization's vice-president. During her high school years she also performed in USO entertainments in Hawaii and took part in a recurring community variety show called "The Gay Nineties."

After graduating from Roosevelt High School in June 1945, Fong enrolled at Long Beach City College on the mainland to study dramatics. Within weeks of her arrival, she performed in a show for war workers at Douglas Aircraft Corporation, where actor Francis Lederer noticed her and brought her to the attention of MGM scouts. She was tested for a role in Holiday in Mexico, secured the part, and signed a contract with the studio, though her footage was ultimately cut from the finished film. She continued working under the name Frances Chung throughout her MGM years, from 1945 through 1948. Her credits during this period included an uncredited bit part in Anna and the King of Siam, produced by 20th Century, and her first credited screen role in the thirteen-part Universal serial Lost City of the Jungle. She returned to MGM for Dark Delusion in 1947, then was loaned to Paramount for Saigon in 1948. Her final film of that period was an independent production, Women in the Night, which provided her with screen credit and newspaper coverage.

Following the end of her MGM contract, Fong spent seven years without film work. She joined a twelve-piece ensemble called The Cathayans as lead vocalist, performing at the St. Francis Hotel and other San Francisco venues. During the winter of 1953 to 1954, she entered a Miss Chinese New Year Festival contest in which the winner was determined by ticket sales rather than appearance. A photograph of Fong and two other contestants circulated widely in newspapers across the country, generating publicity that led to her being cast in at least four episodes of the television series The New Adventures of China Smith in 1954, her first television work. That exposure in turn brought her a role in the Clark Gable film Soldier of Fortune, set in Hong Kong, for which she received no screen credit but was mentioned favorably in newspaper reviews. She also had uncredited appearances in Hell on Frisco Bay, filmed in 1955 and released in 1956, and in Around the World in 80 Days, along with television appearances on Navy Log and Cavalcade of America in 1956.

Also in 1956, Fong developed a nightclub act centered on her singing, supplemented by dance routines and comedy. The act ran for nineteen months at the New Frontier and seven months at the Thunderbird. She was top-billed at San Francisco's Forbidden City during the final quarter of 1958. While still performing there, she began taking on television work for Warner Brothers Television, appearing in episodes of 77 Sunset Strip and Lawman. For her role in 77 Sunset Strip she was required to speak Chinese on screen; having no knowledge of the language, she began taking lessons, a fact that publicity agents shared with reporters.

By January 1959, Fong had left nightclub performing to concentrate on television. Over the following three years she appeared in more than a dozen different series, among them Peter Gunn, Hawaiian Eye, Bachelor Father, and Perry Mason, as well as shorter-lived productions including Yancy Derringer, 21 Beacon Street, Johnny Midnight, The Case of the Dangerous Robin, and Mr. Garlund. She was also cast in the pilot episodes of two series, Shark Street and Brady, neither of which was picked up. With no recurring or regular television role secured, she turned her attention to live theatre.

Beginning in June 1962, Fong joined the touring company of Pajama Tops, a French farce adapted from Moumou by Jean de Létraz that had been running in small Los Angeles theaters for five years. Producers Stan Seiden and Zev Buffman organized the tour, opening at the Moore Theatre in Seattle, which was then hosting the World's Fair. The play was set in a Deauville country house and revolved around three couples and a diminutive police inspector. The cast of seven included John Agar and June Wilkinson as the leads, with Fong playing the ambitious maid Claudine alongside Cliff Halle, Leslie Vallen, Brad Logan, and Don McArt, under the direction of Richard Vath. After nine sold-out weeks in Seattle, the company moved to Miami's Coconut Grove Playhouse for another nine-week run that set performance records, then continued through Pittsburgh's Nixon Theatre, Kingston in Jamaica, St. Louis, Kansas City, Baltimore, and additional cities. Over the course of the tour, Vath assumed Agar's role and James Winslow replaced Logan as the butler Jacques. The production reached Broadway in late May 1963, where it played four previews and fifty-two performances at the Winter Garden Theatre. Near the end of the run, a backstage altercation occurred after Wilkinson deliberately upstaged Fong during one of Fong's scenes, resulting in the stage manager, who attempted to intervene, sustaining a sore jaw. The Broadway engagement marked Fong's only known stage appearance and represented the sole Broadway credit of her career.