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Charlie Low Biography & Facts

Forbidden City was a Chinese nightclub and cabaret in San Francisco, which was in business from 1938 to 1970, and operated on the second floor of 363 Sutter Street, between Chinatown and Union Square. Although Forbidden City was not the first Chinese American nightclub, it was the most famous nightlife venue to feature Asian American singers, dancers, chorus lines, magicians, strippers, and musicians, and was entirely managed and staffed by Asian Americans. It was popular with military personnel who were transiting through San Francisco during World War II, as well as Hollywood celebrities, and became the most well-known "Chop Suey Circuit" during the 40s and 50s. The term "Chop Suey Circuit" is used to refer to the established network of Chinese American nightclubs which opened in 1930s San Francisco Chinatown. Forbidden City also became a platform for Asian American performers who were denied opportunities through racial discrimination. Asian American performers were able to prove their talent regardless of their racial identity, and some even launched their career after the closure of Forbidden City. The club inspired Tom Ball, a Caucasian stage producer who opened "China Doll", the first Asian American nightclub in New York City in 1946, and billed as "New York's only all-oriental night club." Forbidden City also inspired the novel The Flower Drum Song (1957), which became a musical (1958) and film (1961) of the same title. In 1989, the club was profiled in the documentary, Forbidden City U.S.A., by Arthur Dong. History Inception Charlie Low, the son of small store owners from Nevada, opened the Forbidden City on December 22, 1938,: 22–23  after the success of Chinese Village, which he had opened two years earlier. The new club would eventually become the most famous of approximately 12 Chinese-themed cabaret clubs in the Chinatown area. It was located on the outskirts of San Francisco's Chinatown, and catered to the curiosity of a mostly white audience who were often intimidated by a community of only Chinese Americans. Low's Forbidden City was preceded by and competed with Andy Wong's Chinese Sky Room, which opened almost a year earlier on December 31, 1937; the Chinese Sky Room featured a big band led by trumpeter Wong in what was previously the rooftop Chinese Tea Garden of the Grand View Hotel at Grant and Pine.: 21  The origin of the name Named after the Forbidden City in Beijing, Low described his nightclub as an Oriental paradise separated from the rest of the world. Low also joked about the club publicly, saying: "my babies (showgirls) are forbidden to say 'yes'", which resonates to his idea of "look—but don't touch my beautiful Oriental girls." The male performers were also labeled as "sissy," meaning homosexual men who don't fit into traditional gender roles of Chinese culture. Forbidden City also was a forbidden destination for the local Chinese communities, especially for conservative Chinese residents. It was viewed as a scandalous and shameful place where "girls show their legs" when they are not taught to do so. Thus, Low found it difficult to recruit performers from the local Chinese community, which looked down on entertainers, particularly women in sexually provocative performances. For this reason, Low recruited Asian American performers primarily from other areas like Arizona, Hawaii, and the Midwest, rather than directly from San Francisco's Chinatown.: 22  Although the Forbidden City cast was drawn from multiple countries, Low required the performers to change their names to sound more "Chinese" because Forbidden City is a club that "celebrates Orientalism.": 276  Forbidden City also became a place for many of its cast to learn choreography formally as many of them were self-taught, or had no prior experience. Rise to popularity Business was slow until 1940, when Low hired Noel Toy, a journalism student at University of California, Berkeley who had worked as a nude model at the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939. At Forbidden City, Toy was marketed as a "Bubble Dancer" and the "Chinese Sally Rand" even though she had no experience in dancing. Toy performed nude with a large, opaque bubble covering her body. She also performed a nude fan dance with ostrich feathers. Within three months, business revenues had tripled. Life Magazine published a 3-page profile of the club in 1940, praising the dancing abilities of Chinese women as a "fragile charm distinctive to their race". Toy's performance also brought in a flow of male Caucasian audience who were seeking to fulfill their hypersexualization of race. According to the manager of Forbidden City, Frank Huie, during its busiest periods, the club recorded 2,200 patrons in a day. Many of the performers were second and third-generation Asian Americans, who had grown up in traditional Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrant households. The women, in particular, were expected to follow traditional female roles, and their grandmothers may have had bound feet. However, they strongly identified with American youth culture, including the film, music, and dance styles of the era. Some ran away from home to pursue a new life, such as Jadin Wong and Ellen Chinn. The Hollywood star Anna May Wong served as an inspiration to some of them, and they often rebelled against the conventions of their period. As Candice Pociano, daughter of Ellen Chin explained, "It was taboo to dance in Mom's day onstage exposing your legs, and even in my teen days, the Chinese girls were shy and demure." Furthermore, as explained by Jimmy Borges, a former performer at the club: [Before] the Asian was always looked upon as being a menial. And when Charlie Low's nightclub opened, he showed that, you know, the Asians don't only do dishes or work on the railroads or do laundry. They dance, they sing, they're magicians, they're tap dancers. And not only that, they're very good at it... And whenever I ran into stuff where people I would run into, racism or stuff like that, all it did was make me stronger. I says, 'You know what? You're going to be sorry one day, you're going to wish you were my friend.' Because that was my impetus to succeed. The club thrived through the 1950s. World War II brought many servicemen to San Francisco, which served as a primary port of departure for the Pacific Theater; the club was popular with both servicemen and tourists. The audience was primarily Caucasian, but Asian American locals and tourists also visited the club. Some of the Japanese American performers changed their names to avoid the prevalent anti-Japanese sentiment while others were forced to move out of the region to avoid internment.: 30–31  A fire in 1946 temporarily closed the club. While Forbidden City was the most famous Chinatown nightclub, it competed with other local venues that featured Asian American performers, such as Club Shanghai, Lion's Den, Kublai Khan, Dragon's Lair, and Chinese Sky Room. In fact, Charlie .... Discover the Charlie Low popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Charlie Low books.