Artist:Arabella Hong
Song:Love, Look Away
Album:Flower Drum Song: Original Broadway Cast
Arabella Hong Is a Chinese American singer best known for playing seamstress Helen Chao in the 1958 Broadway musical Flower Drum Song and Love, Look Away was her only song in the show. She did not appear in the film version. She has a couple of TV appearance and that's it. She doesn't have a Wikipedia page. But she did perform on The Ed Sullivan Show. She was born Oct. 20, 1927 in Stockton, CA. to Chinese immigrants. She studied at Juilliard and became an opera singer. When Rodgers & Hammerstein were casting Flower Drum Song, they needed to find actors that at least looked Chinese. So Arabella was cast as Helen Chao. In the 1962 film, Reiko Sato played Helen Chao and her singing voice was dubbed by opera singer Marilyn Horne. My guess is Arabella didn't want to go to Hollywood. She stayed in New York and appeared in the TV shows Deadline and Armstrong Circle Theater. But for most of her life, Arabella was a vocal coach. She worked at Berghoff Studios for over thirty years. And she gave private lessons. Her only appearance in anything was as The Shopkeeper in the 1983 TV Movie Big Bird in China. Apparently she retired in 2014. But I couldn't even tell you if she's still alive. She hasn't posted on Facebook since 2019 and her website is kaput. Here's Arabella Hong performing Love, Look Away on The Ed Sullivan Show Dec. 14, 1958.
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