When Jadin Wong was asked how old she was, the celebrated dancer, comedienne and talent agent quipped, "Age is a number, and I have an unlisted one." In reality, the Chinese-American pioneer, whose career spanned nightclubs, theatre, comedy and film, was 96 when she died March 30 of natural causes in New York City.
Born on May 24, 1913, in Marysville, CA, Ms. Wong grew up in Stockton and started dancing at age five. She moved to San Francisco and headlined as a dancer in 1938 at Charlie Low's Forbidden City, the country's best-known Chinese-American nightclub. Wearing an exotic headdress and costume, she was featured in Life magazine and written up in Walter Winchell's column in New York. Critics praised her "Dance of the Moon Goddess," in which she performed to Debussy's "Clair de Lune." (Source: Wayman Wong, playbill.com, Apr 5, 2010).