Pioneer exotic dancer Noel Toy's fashionably seductive nude performances in San Francisco and New York night clubs caused a sensation in her 1940s heyday.
Concealed by a few ostrich plumes, she became the nation's first Chinese-American fan dancer, turning San Francisco's "Forbidden City" into one of the nation's most scandalously famous nightclubs.
Dubbed the "Chinese Sally Rand" due to her similar routines with fans and a huge, transparent plastic bubble, ritzy New York clubs fought over her.
She went on to "take it all off" at exclusive niteries such as "The Stork Club", "Maxie's", "The 18th Club", Lou Walter's "Latin Quarter", and "Leon & Eddie's".
Born Ngun Yee in San Francisco, she was the eldest of eight children born to émigré parents from Canton, China. Her parents operated a laundromat, and she studied journalism, being close to graduating from the University of California Berkeley when she accepted an offer to perform in a Chinese village show at the World's Fair on Treasure Island in San Francisco in 1939.
Later that year, businessman Charlie Low invited her to work at his popular "Forbidden City" nightclub, the first and only Chinese nightclub at the time. A cross-over business quickly escalated, and she began calling herself Noel Toy out of her love for the Christmas season.
Along the way, she became an outspoken critic, striving to liberalize women, particularly Chinese women, from the demeaning stereotype of a demure, submissive, and subservient gender. She appeared in newspapers and eventually in LIFE magazine.
In 1945, she met and married a U.S. Army soldier and western character actor Carleton Young, whom she had caught dance act at New York's "Latin Quarter". They had a long and happy marriage, which ended only with his death in 1994 at age 89. She gave up dancing at her husband's request and began a career in acting.
She appeared in a few exotic bits in films such as Anne of the Indies (1951) with Jean Peters and Debra Paget, Soldier of Fortune (1955) with Clark Gable and Susan Hayward, The Left Hand of God (1955) with Humphrey Bogart and Gene Tierney, and How to Be Very, Very Popular (1955) with Betty Grable and Sheree North.
She grew disillusioned with the stereotyped role Hollywood placed on Asian-American women and eventually moved away from the business, pursuing real estate.
Every now and then, she would be glimpsed in character roles on established TV programs such as "Police Woman", "Family Affair", and "M*A*S*H".
She also appeared in the Kurt Russell film Big Trouble in Little China (1986) in a minor matron role.
Trim, tiny, and forever sensuous, she died on Christmas Eve of 2003, five days after suffering a stroke. She was 84.
The ashes of Noel Toy Young and husband Carleton Young were interred together at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
