Toy & Wing
Asian American tap dance duo / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Toy & Wing were an American tap dance duo composed of Dorothy Toy (real name Shigeko Takahashi, May 28, 1917 – July 10, 2019) and Paul Wing (real name Paul Wing Jew, October 14, 1912 – April 27, 1997).[1][2][3][4] They were billed as the "Chinese Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers",[2] though only Wing was Chinese-American; Toy was of Japanese descent.[2][3][5] Active in the 1930s and 1940s, they were the first Asian-Americans to enter the American tap dance scene.[6] The pair married in 1940, mostly for convenience of booking and promotion, but later divorced. They continued dancing together after their separation.[7]
The pair were invited to participate in a film with Chico Marx, but were prevented because of Toy's Japanese heritage following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.[8]
Dorothy Toy was born on May 28, 1917, in San Francisco to Yataro and Kiyo (née Sayama) Takahashi. She had a sister, Helen. After marrying Les Fong in 1952, her married name was Dorothy Toy Fong — they would later divorce. Following her dance career, Toy worked as a pharmaceutical technician and a dance instructor.[9] She turned 100 in May 2017,[10] and died on July 10, 2019, at the age of 102 at her home in Oakland, California.[11] She had two children, Peter and Dorlie.[12][13]
Toy's career was memorialized in Dancing through Life: The Dorothy Toy Story, a film produced by Rick Quan in 2017.[14][15]
Paul Wing was born October 14, 1912 in Menlo Park and raised in Palo Alto. He married his wife, Anna, in 1974.[16] Wing served in World War II, taking park in the Normandy landing.[17]