Tô Văn Lai

**Tô Văn Lai** is known as one of the founders of Thuy Nga Productions, along with his wife Nguyễn Ngọc Thúy.

## Biological information

### Born

Tô Văn Lai
May 11th, 1937
Saigon - Gia Dinh, French Cochinchina

### Died

July 19th, 2022
California, USA

## Career

### Year of career beginning

1960s (as a teacher)
1980s (as the director of Thuy Nga Productions)

## Thuy Nga collaboration

### First PBN appearance

Paris By Night 81 - Âm Nhạc Không Biên Giới 2

### Last PBN appearance

Paris By Night 107 - Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn - 20 Năm Sân Khấu

## Family

### Parents

- Unknown father
- Unknown mother

### Children

- Tô Ngọc Thủy (daughter, b. 1964)
- Tô Ngọc Kim (son)

### Other known family members

- Huỳnh Thi (son-in-law, b. 1962)
- Tiffany Phạm (daughter-in-law)
- Kevin Huỳnh (grandchild, b. 1992)
- Celina Huỳnh (grandchild, b. 1995)
- Dustin Huỳnh (b. 1996)
- Nathalie Huỳnh (grandchild, b. 1997)
- James (grandchild, b. 2015)
- Ellie (grandchild, b. 2016)

## History

Tô Văn Lai was born on May 11th, 1937 in Saigon - Gia Định. Sometimes at the age of 18, he got a French Diplôme with his excelling French and English, and by the time the state of Republic of Vietnam was established in 1955, the Army of Republic of Vietnam enacted a policy that allows the Diplôme-owned people to enlist in the army as a Major, however, he refused to become a military officer and pursued the path to become a teacher instead, as his family was poor at the time and could not afford to pay for his tuition fees in medical school.

Tô Văn Lai once studied Philosophy & Mathematics in the original Dalat University of Education based on his mother's wish in the early 1960s and graduated in 1963. Later in the summer of the same year, he was assigned by the Ministry of Education into Nguyễn Đình Chiểu High School and began his teaching career there. Sometime after his graduation and employment, he married Nguyễn Ngọc Thúy and gave birth to Tô Ngọc Thủy on October 18th, 1964 - they also had a son named Tô Ngọc Kim following their daughter's birth.

In 1972, the original Thuy Nga Productions has been established after the initial success of two magnetic reel albums, *Thái Thanh Sélection* and *Thanh Tuyền 1 - Tiếng Hát Thanh Tuyền*. However, the musical business was cut short following the events of April 30th, 1975. His family stayed in Vietnam for over a year before immigrating to France in December 1976 - upon departing from their hometown, he carried along all music tapes and valuable documents about the culture of South Vietnam which had been successfully kept away from the reach of Viet Cong after its occupation of South Vietnam. The Tô family lived in Paris, France, where during the first days of oversea life, they took multiple jobs to earn a living, including working as a gas station attendant (this is known to be the first occupation ever of Tô Ngọc Thủy), later they saved enough to build a facility of recording and redistributing the original pre-1975 cassettes and reels. Eventually in 1983, the first Paris By Night program was directed by John Pierre Barry and produced into VHS by Tô Văn Lai. Three years following the creation of the first program, Thuy Nga continues the series from No. 2 onwards annually. Also, a while after publishing the first PBN installment, Tô Văn Lai and his wife flew from France to the United States and gave Thanh Lan Music permission to distribute the Paris By Night VHS copies to their audiences in US and Canada.

It is said that, despite facing negative opinions about Vietnamese music being unable to compete and the risk of native language disappearing in foreign countries, To Van Lai indeed continued his career in the management and development of Thuy Nga and its products while having only a single thought: to remember how other immigrants came and sponsored their families of moving along with them, how the Vietnamese community had grown up on foreign territories and the desire to listen to the nostalgic melodies of before 1975 again, as only those old songs can soothe the homesickness, sadness, and melancholy of Vietnamese expatriates. At first, the products of Thuy Nga Productions were to focus on recreating old cải lương plays; overtime, the content of Paris By Night programs gets richer and richer, eventually leading to shows with multiple natures like what people have seen today.

After John Pierre Barry's recommendation, Tô Văn Lai began his search for a long-term MC for the upcoming PBN programs. Nevertheless, he couldn't find a person that matched the following criteria: humorous, knowledgeable and attractive as his own expectations. In the wake of this, he decided to go to Tú Quỳnh bookstore in Paris in order to find an MC based on their literature abilities. Upon learning that the store's best-selling book was written by Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn as well as the tragic backstory of Nguyen Ngoc Ngan with the loss of his family on the way to freedom. In May 1992, To Van Lai sent some VHS tapes of Paris By Night programs to Nguyen Ngoc Ngan, who was residing in Toronto, Canada at the time, with a letter offering Nguyen Ngoc Ngan a position to collaborate with Thuy Nga Productions as an MC in Paris By Night. Since the majority of his family initially did not agree to let him become an MC, it took a long time before Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn accepted Mr. Lai's invitation, to which Mr. Lai called Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn again for the latter to accept the offer. After the 17th Paris By Night show, Nguyen Ngoc Ngan eventually became the exclusive MC for the programs Paris By Night. Although Nguyen Ngoc Ngan later caused a scandal that caused the center to receive heavy criticism from the Vietnamese communities both domestically and abroad, Tô Văn Lai almost did not react heavily to the scandal-causing writer, in return, he continued to give Nguyen Ngoc Ngan more opportunities to continue to develop his potential and display his hosting talent throughout the later Paris By Night programs.

Also, it was Tô Văn Lai himself who either sent invitations to certain composers or actively reached out to them, whether they were living abroad or in Vietnam, and invited them to collaborate on Paris By Night programs with the theme of honoring the music of those musicians. As an example, composer Lam Phương had become one of his family's close friends when To Van Lai organized multiple shows to honor his excessive contributions to Vietnamese music.

The most successful product of Thuy Nga Productions is the Paris By Night series which has been released every year since 1987 known as a series of programs including different genres of new and old music, lyrical music before 1975, choreography, followed by comedy, reportage, theme music, etc... The company's peak period lasted from the 1990s until the early 2010s, where during this time, Mr. To Van Lai also silently ended up assigning the responsibility of director/CEO to Ms. To Ngoc Thuy and her husband after witnessing the achievements that husband and wife have achieved after becoming director and executive producer of more than 30 shows Paris By Night, and also became the planner and content consultant for the following programs.

In 2002, Ngoc Hạ, around 21 - 22 years old, first appeared in the show *Paris By Night 63 - Dòng Thời Gian*. When she first became a singer of Thuy Nga Productions, Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn was the one leading her to the path of a professional singer while To Van Lai sought to take her to cure chronic insomnia while Tô Ngọc Thuy continues to offer her more opportunities for Ngọc Hạ to continue to show her talent on the stage of Paris By Night. As of 2003, Thuy Nga Productions, in addition to having a head office in Little Saigon, California, also has another record store located at 44 Avenue D'Ivry, District 13, Paris.

In February 2006, after the success of the progra*m Paris By Night 80 - Tết Khắp Mọi Nhà*, Tô Văn Lai returned to Vietnam and found musician Nguyễn Văn Đông, now retired, and opened a grocery store. The two discussed and planned a Paris By Night program with the theme of honoring this musician and also the former Colonel of the Army of Republic of Vietnam. However, the musician's inability to go abroad forced Tô Văn Lai to postpone the production of this program according to the set script, and another script was created instead, and that script was used. used to make *Paris By Night 81 - Âm Nhạc Không Biên Giới 2*.

In 2007, Mr. Lai was arrested during a trip to Vietnam to film for Thuy Nga's program without applying for permission from the Vietnamese government. Through inspection by the Vietnamese police, Mr. Lai brought along more than 30 tapes and discs with scenes shot in Vietnam to prepare for the program *Paris By Night 90 - Chân Dung Người Phụ Nữ Việt Nam*. According to the initial script, this will be a DVD with content about Vietnamese women in Vietnamese society during the opening period, with references to the issue of women getting married in Taiwan, China... After this incident, Mr. To Van Lai returned home, and the show's script changed and mainly focused on overseas Vietnamese women. The early next year, Thuy Nga Productions was once again criticized by the Vietnamese communist government through the musical *Huế Mậu Thân* depicting the 1968 Tet Offensive in *Paris By Night 91 - Huế, Sàigòn, Hà Nội*.

In 2012, Thuy Nga Productions conducted the program Paris By Night to celebrate the 20th anniversary of writer Nguyễn Ngọc Ngạn's collaboration with the company itself, and he was the one who praised Nguyen Ngoc Ngan's contributions and awarded the anniversary souvenir for the writer. In the early 2010s, the professor, together along with his associates founded VietFaceTV, which has come in the form of television channel, radio and then a Youtube channel in the present. Though in the old age, Tô Văn Lai had been working as a content consultant through his creations of contents of various liveshows for Thuy Nga Productions.

## Legacy

The biggest and most prominent legacy of Tô Văn Lai of all the time is Thuy Nga Productions and its well-known Paris By Night series.