Bo Ching
Born
Bo Ching Park

April 21, 1911
Alameda County, California, USA
DiedJuly 13, 1999 (aged 88)
Los Angeles County, California, USA
Other namesWinnie Park
Alma materBerkeley High School
University of California, Berkeley
SpouseWilliam Tong (m. 1945)
FamilyBo Ling (sister)

Bo Ching "Winnie" Park was an American actor active in Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1940s.[1][2]

Biography

Bo Ching was born in Alameda County, California, to Edward "E.L." Park and Oie "Florence" Chan. Her parents — born in the United States to Chinese immigrants — were actors; E.L. appeared as Charlie Chan in the 1924 film Behind the Curtain and later served as an interpreter for the county of Los Angeles, while Florence appeared in a number of films in the 1930s and 1940s. When the family relocated to Los Angeles in the late 1920s, E.L. and Florence opened a Chinese restaurant on Alameda Street and owned their own Chinese costume store.[2][3]

After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley,[4] Bo Ching and her older sister, Bo Ling, performed in Las Vegas and around the country as a vaudeville act before settling in Hollywood and getting work as actors in the film industry.[5][6][7] Their contemporaneous publicity materials often claimed the pair were born in China and that they were twins, despite being born several years apart.[8][9]

Bo Ching married William Tong — a Seabee with the U.S. Navy — in Los Angeles in 1945.[10][11] The pair met at the Hollywood Guild Canteen a year earlier. Later on in Tong's life, she more or less retired from acting but worked as a tap-dancing teacher.[12] She briefly came out of retirement for one role in the 1980s, appearing as Keiko's grandmother in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Select filmography

References

  1. ↑ "The Pittsburgh Press 21 Aug 1939, page Page 10". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2023-08-25.
  2. 1 2 California, Jenny Cho and the Chinese Historical Society of Southern (2013). Chinese in Hollywood. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-9973-1.
  3. ↑ "The Minneapolis Times-Tribune 23 Aug 1939, page 10". Retrieved 2023-08-25 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ↑ "Los Angeles Evening Post-Record 22 Jan 1934, page 9". Retrieved 2023-08-25 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ "Times Union 07 Apr 1932, page 45". Retrieved 2023-08-25 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. ↑ "Daily News 03 Jun 1927, page 13". Retrieved 2023-08-25 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. ↑ "The Neon Museum Las Vegas | The history of Las Vegas through neon - A Brief History of the Chinese of Las Vegas: Part I". neonmuseum.org. 2021-06-25. Retrieved 2023-08-25.
  8. ↑ "The Los Angeles Times 29 Dec 1928, page 23". Retrieved 2023-08-25 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ "The Belleville News-Democrat 12 May 1928, page 10". Retrieved 2023-08-25 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ "The Los Angeles Times 04 Mar 1945, page 20". Retrieved 2023-08-25 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. ↑ Wedding portrait of Bo Ching Park and Navy SeaBee William Tong with attendants Charles Wilson and Bo Ling Mason, 1945, 1945-03-03, retrieved 2023-08-25
  12. ↑ "The Los Angeles Times 10 Sep 1994, page Page 1". Retrieved 2023-08-25 – via Newspapers.com.


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