On the night of our show, Grace went to check the house. She returned bubbling: “Ida Lupino, Ann Sothern, and Randolph Scott are sitting at ringside tables!”
“No one would ever call them jaw-droppingly famous,” Eddie sniffed, but I could tell he was pleased to have movie stars in the audience.
We billed ourselves as the Chinese Dancing Sweethearts. Grace and I wore our new sequined gowns, which caught the light and reflected into the audience. Eddie, in his new tuxedo with shimmering lapels, and his hair oiled to glisten, hoped to draw all the women’s eyes to him. We flowed back and forth across the floor, embracing and releasing each other, and then coming together again. Eddie’s choreography incorporated graceful arcs, sweeping shoulders, dramatic lifts, and deep knee bends. A dip here, and Eddie kissed me; a dip there, and he kissed Grace. For the finale, he put an arm around each of our waists, lifted us both off the floor, and twirled us in mesmerizing slow motion, showing not only our delicacy but his strength as a dancer and as a man. We earned back everything we’d spent on our costumes, but we were not asked to return.
“Why would one man dance with two girls?” the Vendome’s manager asked after we performed. “What does it mean? Do Chinese girls do that?”
Max got us a few other bookings at second-rate joints, but splitting $17.50 a week between three people was no way to earn a living. The Chinese cooks in the club kitchens so pitied us that they gave us leftover ice cream and stale rolls. We’d take home our handouts, steam the rolls, and then dip them in the melted ice cream. I could have written home and asked for money, but I didn’t want to give my father the satisfaction. Besides, to me, this was all still a big and fun adventure.
Then our luck took a turn for the worse. We were rejected again and again, with one kick in the pants after another. In October, Max finally managed to book a gig for us to do programmers-putting on our act before shows at the Orpheum movie palace, right across the street from where Ruby had told us she lived with her parents when she was a girl. This was the last gasp of vaudeville, and our trio was slotted between a jumping dog act and an old woman who should have abandoned burlesque a long time ago. We tried to be better than the other performers, but the audience just wanted the movie to start.
One night, after two weeks of shows, Eddie fell into a dark mood. We were backstage, the film was playing, and it reflected on us in reverse. Eddie sat on a wooden crate, put his elbows on his knees, and stared at the floor.
“I’ve been working as an entertainer for a long time, and I’m right back where I started,” he said, his voice dry and black. “My father was a doctor, and he expected me to become one too. When I was in my first year at Yale medical school, I’d go to the local speakeasy, where they held dance contests as part of their cover. The first prize was fifteen bucks. What I’d do for that now.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, Eddie. Let’s go home.”
When he shrugged me off, Grace and I grabbed a couple of stools and pulled them next to him. We gathered our skirts and draped them over our knees to keep them from slipping onto the filthy floor.
“I used to go down to New York on weekends to see Fred and Adele Astaire on Broadway. I’d watch the show three times in a single weekend. I’d practice what I’d seen on the sidewalk. Then I’d go up to Harlem and watch Bill Robinson, Peg Leg Bates, the Nicholas Brothers-”
“I saw Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson in The Little Colonel at the Rialto,” Grace interrupted. “I didn’t much care for Shirley Temple, but I loved Bill Robinson-”
“I’d go in the alley behind the Cotton Club between shows,” Eddie continued, “where the guys would be smoking, drinking, showing off to each other. It’s 1925, and you just can’t believe who’s dancing there-”
Nineteen twenty-five? I was only seven years old then. If he was in medical school in 1925, he would have been somewhere around twenty-two years old. That meant he had to be about thirty-seven now. I glanced at Grace. She blinked back at me: Holy smokes!
Eddie ran a hand through his hair. “My dad has family connections in New York Chinatown, and he sets me up for a job in a clinic over winter break, because he wants me to get experience. Instead, I visit my buddies over at the Cotton Club. ‘You gotta help me, man,’ I tell them. They send me to a speak down on Fifth. When I walk in there, the headman looks at me like I’ve got a screw loose, but they’ve got a good band and I start dancing on the floor-alone, among all the couples. Pretty soon they’re backing away, giving me plenty of space. They dig it! They start throwing money at me. It’s raining coins and bills. I make picking up the money and putting it in my pockets part of the act. I make more dough in those five minutes than I would have made in five days working for my dad’s friend. The music ends, and I’m still picking up money. The headman comes over and says, ‘You dance like that five times a night and you got a job.’ ” Eddie lifted his chin. “Do either of you have a drink on you?”
Of course not.
“But it’s a speak,” he went on, “so we’re raided a lot. I’m dancing in my tails, while everyone else is running for the back door. Then it was time to go back to Yale.”
Eddie lifted his head. He seemed tormented by memories. “My dad wants me to shadow him as he takes care of his patients. He was one of the first Chinese to attend medical school in America. I’m proud of him, but I don’t want to be a doctor. I don’t want to deliver babies or lance boils. One night I ask my mom to come to my room. I open my box with all the money I made in the speak. She asks, ‘Who did you rob?’ Not long after that I leave for Hollywood. My first job you wouldn’t believe. I’m dancing at the opening of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and then before every movie showing. It seems like a big accomplishment, but it’s actually not my big break. I get a solo in a movie. I leap off a piano and land in a split. Everyone tells me that will become my signature move. I thought I had it made.”
“That is your signature move,” I said, “and you do have it made. You’re just going through a rough patch-”
“I understand, Eddie,” Grace interrupted. “With every good opportunity that comes along, I get the sense I’ll only go so far. Even if I do get a part in a movie, it will be as a maid or dragon lady. And even if I succeed, I’ll always be compared to-”
“I don’t want to be a copy of someone else,” Eddie grumbled. “I don’t want to be the Chinese Fred Astaire. There are enough imitators already. I mean, how many Chinese Fred Astaires can there be? I don’t want to be the Chinese Bill Robinson either.”
Grace sympathized. “Who hasn’t heard of the Betty Grable Legs of Chinatown, the Chinese Sophie Tucker, the Chinese Houdini, or the Chinese Bing Crosby?”
“Isn’t that just shorthand?” I asked, trying to be business-practical. “Isn’t it a way for customers and casting directors to put people like us into a recognizable box-”
“Like if you can’t afford Errol Flynn, you put a man in tights, give him a bow and arrow, and throw a felt hat with a feather in it on top of his head, and people will make the connection?” Eddie asked bitterly.
So I’d insulted him.
“I want to be recognized for who I am and for what I do.” He sighed. “I was hired to play a Hawaiian, an Indian, and a Japanese. They never wanted me to play a Chinese, because they said I didn’t look Chinese enough. I didn’t look right to play a waiter, houseboy, or hatchet man. I can’t win,” he said, anger surfacing. “Even Charlie Chan’s Number One Son never gets the girl. So here I am, flanked by two babes. But that brings the other stereotype-that Chinese men are oversexed, and we’re going to rape white women and pollute the race. If that weren’t enough, we’ll never make what other entertainers make. Hell, we’ll never make what Negro entertainers make. Back at the Cotton Club, Ethel Waters and the Nicholas Brothers earned about a thousand bucks a week. Bill Robinson made thirty-seven hundred big ones. Charlie and the other club owners will never pay us anything close to that. Never!”