'She Was My Idol.' A Daughter Remembers Her Dance Star Mother

In the late 1930s, after years on the Vaudeville circuit, Dorothy Toy debuted on Broadway with her dance partner Paul Wing — known together as famous dance duo, Toy & Wing.

Decades later, her daughter, Dorlie Fong, had hoped to bring Toy to StoryCorps to share her story, but Toy died in 2019 at age 102 before that was possible.

Recently, Fong shared memories from her childhood with StoryCorps and talked about her late mother's legacy.

As a child, while her mother was touring with the dance company, Fong would watch her performances in awe.

"I remember watching her perform with her dance partner from the wings of the stage," she said. "Everything from the jitterbug to tap and ballet. My mother did a lot of turns and leaps. She'd come running off the stage, hurriedly change into her toe shoes, just dripping with perspiration, and then she'd go back on for this spectacular finale."