Flower Drum Song lobby card
date: label: date made
content: 1962
name: label: referenced
content: Hall, Juanita
label: Associated Name
content: Soo, Jack
notes: label: Description
content: Lobby card advertising the 1961 film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song. The film starred Nancy Kwan, James Shigeta, Juanita Hall, Jack Soo, Benson Fong, and Miyoshi Umeki. The lobby card features a still from the film, featuring a dance sequence with Nancy Kwan and Jack Soo in an elaborate set, printed in color, with information about the film printed around the photo at top and right.
label: Description
content: In 1957, Chinese American author, Chan Ying Lee published the original Flower Drum Song. The novel made the New York Times best-seller list and drew the attention of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Scriptwriter Joseph Fields obtained the stage rights from Lee and later sold the story to Rodgers and Hammerstein. The original musical opened on Broadway in 1958 featuring Gene Kelly as director and a predominantly Asian American cast including Miyoshi Umeki, Jack Soo, and Keye Luke. It was a successful production with 600 performances and was nominated for six Tony awards. Following the success of the performances, Universal Pictures released a cinematic version of the musical in 1961. Flower Drum Song was the first movie to feature an Asian American cast with Umeki reprising her role of Mei Li, Soo returning as Sammy Fong, and the addition of Nancy Kwan as Linda Low, and James Shigeta as Wang Ta. The lobby card in our collection was used to advertise the film adaptation. The film went on to be nominated for five Academy awards and solidified its status as an historical cinematic document that reflects radical change in the U.S. The representation of Asian Americans shifted away from the stereotype that Asians were inassimilable to American culture towards a portrayal of them as more well-rounded characters.
label: Description
content: Jack Soo was a groundbreaking Japanese American entertainer who fought the entertainment industry’s reductive and narrow opportunities for people of color. Soo built an incredible career as a singer, comedian, and actor in nightclubs, radio and television appearances, and films from the 1940s-1970s. He is best remembered today for his role as Detective Nick Yemana on The Barney Miller Show, which aired from 1975-1982.
label: Description
content: Jack Soo was born Goro Suzuki on October 28th, 1917, to Japanese immigrants to the United States, his father a tailor and his mother a seamstress. He grew up in in Oakland, California, where Goro enjoyed performing from a young age, often imitating famous singers and participating in amateur theater around San Francisco. According to friends, he excelled as an athlete, singer, and dancer, and was also a gifted writer. At age 17, Goro was awarded the gold medal by the Japanese American Citizens League for a paper he wrote titled “Why I’m Proud to be an American.” Suzuki attended the University of California Berkley, graduating with a degree in English and minor in Journalism, but his studies were cut short after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
label: Description
content: President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 in 1942, authorizing the detainment and forced relocation of people of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast of the United States to government-run concentration camps. Suzuki was ordered to report to the Tanforan Assembly Center before being relocated to Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah. Though little is known about Goro’s life in the camp, he would later speak about the joy he felt when performing in amateur theatrical productions and talent shows at Topaz. Suzuki earned a reputation as a skilled emcee, singer, and comedian. He produced shows that satirized the daily experiences of camp life. At one point, Suzuki organized a group of performers within the camp to put on a program at the local Delta High School. Remarkably, he was able to not only persuade the camp administrators to let them leave the premises, but also provide a bus to the high school for their outing.
label: Description
content: By 1944, Suzuki had left the camp, taken the more familiar Chinese-sounding stage name Jack Soo, and was working as a nightclub emcee in northern Ohio. Soon, he was working the “Chop Suey Circuit,” a network of nightclubs and performance venues where Asian performers found rare opportunities for employment, but also often catered to White audiences’ romanticized fantasies of Asian culture. He was a popular fixture at The Forbidden City nightclub in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where he earned an opportunity to appear as a fictionalized version of himself in the Rogers and Hammerstein musical Flower Drum Song.
label: Description
content: Flower Drum Song was a landmark work of musical comedy for its depiction of Asian American life and roles it has provided for Asian American actors, dancers, and singers. Based on the novel by C.Y. Lee, the story follows a family of wealthy refugees from Communist China who struggle with American assimilation. In the original Broadway production, Soo was originally cast as Frankie Wing, a nightclub announcer, as well as the understudy to Larry Blyden’s character Sammy Fong. In December of 1959, Soo then took on the role of Sammy Fong following Blyden’s departure, a role he reprised in the 1961 film adaptation.
label: Description
content: Today, Soo is best remembered for portraying Detective Nick Yemana on The Barney Miller Show. Celebrated for its multi-ethnic, multi-racial cast, The Barney Miller Show featured Puerto Rican, Jewish, Black, and Asian American cast members as law enforcement officers in a fictional Manhattan precinct. Soo portrayed Yemana as a world-weary and wryly sarcastic realist. The series featured multiple plotlines in which Detective Yemana is wrongfully sidelined and stereotyped, to which he responds with deadpan, dry humor. The comedy aired from 1975 to 1982, though Soo’s involvement ended in 1979, midway through season five, following his untimely death from esophageal cancer; Soo was 61. As part of a tribute to Jack Soo, at the end of episode 24 of season five, actor Hal Linden, who played Captain Barney Miller, fondly recalled the way in which Soo imbued Yemana’s character not only with humor about his Japanese American heritage, but also with dignity and pride.
label: Description
content: Jack Soo had a profound influence on American and Japanese American culture, persevering through adversity like his wartime incarceration, standing strong against typecasting and racial prejudice, and representing the full humanity and potential of Japanese American life.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: general subject association
content: Motion Pictures
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
label: See more items in
content: Popular Entertainment
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content: Movies
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content: Movie Collection
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Steve Landesberg and Jean Soo
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1979.1008.05
label: accession number
content: 1979.1008
label: catalog number
content: 1979.1008.05
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Card, Lobby
label: Object Name
content: lobby card
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: ink (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 11 in x 14 in; 27.94 cm x 35.56 cm