Jack Soo

Jack Soo was an American actor and singer, born Goro Suzuki in 1917 on a ship in the Pacific Ocean and raised in Oakland, California. After World War II he started out as a stand-up nightclub performer and adopted the stage name Jack Soo while working clubs such as Chin's in Cleveland. His break came in 1958 with the Broadway musical Flower Drum Song, where he played Frankie Wing and later took over the Sammy Fong role, which he repeated in the 1961 film. In 1962 he made his first nationwide television appearance on The Jack Benny Program, and in 1964 he had a weekly role as the con artist Rocky Sin on Valentine's Day. His films included Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) and The Green Berets, and he joined Motown Records in 1965, recording an unreleased ballad version of For Once in My Life. From 1975 he played Detective Nick Yemana on Barney Miller. He died in 1979.