1. Jack Soo was best known for his role as Detective Nick Yemana on the television sitcom Barney Miller.
16 Facts About Jack Soo
1. 2.
Jack Soo was born Goro Suzuki on a ship traveling in the Pacific Ocean from the United States to Japan on October 28,1917.
3.
Jack Soo's parents lived in Oakland, California, and they decided that as he was the oldest boy, they wanted to have him born in Japan.
4.
Jack Soo graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a degree in English.
5.
Jack Soo lived in Oakland until ordered into internment along with other Japanese Americans during World War II and the signing of Executive Order 9066.
6.
Jack Soo was sent to the Topaz War Relocation Center in Utah.
7.
Jack Soo adopted the surname Soo that he had used to leave the internment camp at Topaz.
8.
Jack Soo had been working in San Francisco at the Forbidden City, a Chinese nightclub and cabaret, where he was discovered by the actor and dancer Gene Kelly who was the director for Flower Drum Song.
9.
Jack Soo switched to the Sammy Fong role during the run and played the role when the film version of the musical was made.
10.
In 1964, Jack Soo played a weekly supporting role as Rocky Sin, a poker-playing con artist in Valentine's Day, a comedy television series starring Anthony Franciosa that lasted for one season.
11.
Jack Soo joined Motown Records in 1965 as one of their first non-African-American musicians.
12.
Jack Soo was cast in his most memorable role in 1975 on the ABC sitcom Barney Miller.
13.
Jack Soo had met and befriended the show's producer Danny Arnold years earlier while working the nightclub circuit.
14.
Jack Soo refused to perform in roles that were demeaning to Asian Americans.
15.
Jack Soo often spoke out against negative ethnic portrayals and was adamant about being a person who was seen as an American.
16.
Jack Soo returned for the opening of season five, but the cancer spread quickly, and Soo died on January 11,1979, at age 61, at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center.