Actor

1945-11-04 · China · Female

23 series in the catalog

Irene Tsu (born November 4, 1945) is a Shanghai-born American actress who has appeared in over thirty films, the first being 1961's Flower Drum Song. In the late 1960s, she starred in Chevron's popular "Wiki Wiki Dollar" advertising campaign. She speaks English and three varieties of Chinese.

Early life and career

Tsu was born in Shanghai, China to Z.M. and Dulcie Lynn Tsu. Her father was a banker and her mother a painter. After political changes in China in the 1940s, the family left for Taiwan, then Hong Kong. Her father remained behind in Taiwan while in 1957 she and the rest of her immediate family (sister and mother) emigrated to Larchmont, New York, a suburb of New York City, where her aunt lived. Irene attended Mamaroneck Elementary School in Mamaroneck, New York and studied ballet.

In the late 1950s, she auditioned for a dancing job in Broadway's Flower Drum Song. A staff member of the producer David Merrick's office saw the performance and auditioned her for the Broadway musical The World of Suzie Wong and Tsu got a part. Later Irene auditioned for choreographer Hermes Pan in the upcoming film adaptation of the musical Flower Drum Song. The choreographer brought Irene to Hollywood and she was a teenage dancer in the film Flower Drum Song (1961), directed by Henry Koster. That same year, Tsu entered the Miss Chinatown USA beauty pageant on behalf of New York and won first place. Soon after, Tsu scored her first speaking role in another Hermes Pan film, Take Her, She's Mine (1963), starring James Stewart and Sandra Dee. Many film appearances followed, including a stint alongside Elvis Presley in his 1966 film Paradise, Hawaiian Style and roles in the hits Airport 1975 (1974) and Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986).

She studied acting with Ned Maderino, Lee Strasberg and Peggy Feury and attended Los Angeles City College, UCLA Film School, and California State University, Los Angeles.

Tsu was active in television too. On November 21, 1963, the evening before President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Tsu's only appearance on Perry Mason was aired on CBS, as she played the role of defendant Juli Eng in "The Case of the Floating Stones." She made guest appearances on many of the other popular '60s–70s television shows such as I Spy, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Family Affair, Mission: Impossible, My Three Sons, Wonder Woman, and The Wild Wild West. In the 1960s, Tsu met Frank Sinatra in Miami, Florida where she was filming the "Chevron Island" commercials and Sinatra was filming Tony Rome. They dated for over two years.

Tsu married director Iván Nagy in 1971, although they later separated.

Later career

From 1978 until 1989, Tsu was chief operating officer and head designer for her own leisure apparel company, The IT Company/Irene Tsu Designs.

Since 1990 Tsu has been a realtor for Coldwell Banker in Beverly Hills, California.

A long-time yoga practitioner, Tsu studied with yoga master Bikram Choudhury and is featured in both of his books Bikram's Beginning Yoga Class. She taught at Bikram Yoga College in Encinitas, California. She teaches weekly yoga classes at the Bikram HQ in Los Angeles and for the Beverly Hills Department of Parks.

She is a single mother to her daughter, an adopted niece from China.