Frances Quan Chun Kan - Forbidden City singing star

Frances Quan Chun Kan, a featured singer at the fabled Forbidden City nightclub who helped to break down stereotypes and barriers for Asian American performers, died Feb. 23 at a Fairfield hospital from complications from surgery. She was 88.

Mrs. Kan, a self-taught singer who grew up in San Francisco's Chinatown, was one of the stars in the 1930s and '40s at the internationally famous Forbidden City on Sutter Street, the first club in town to feature all-Asian performers singing and dancing in the popular American styles of the day. She was featured in Arthur Dong's award-winning 1989 documentary, "Forbidden City, U.S.A.," about the culture-crossing nightclub that inspired the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Flower Drum Song."

At the time, Chinatown entertainment venues featured mostly Chinese opera, and the idea of outgoing Asian women singing, dancing and telling jokes for ethnically mixed crowds was frowned upon by more conservative members of the Chinese community.

Mrs. Kan began performing professionally in her teens using her maiden name, Frances Chun. She also sang at local hot spots such as Twin Dragons and Kubla Khan and with the Cathayan Dance Orchestra and toured with the all-white Roy Tellier band and on USO, Stage Door Canteen and Red Cross tours during World War II.

In the 1960s, after her children were in school, Mrs. Kan worked as sales clerk at Joseph Magnin, one of the first retail stores to employ Asians in the front of the store.

"She was an extremely dynamic, colorful and feisty woman," said one of Mrs. Kan's daughters, Michele Gander, who remembers her mother singing around the house in the years after she retired from show business. Mrs. Kan was a big fan of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby and Tony Bennett.

Mrs. Kan's parents, who owned two grocery stores in Chinatown, were very supportive of her career choice, Gander said. But before Mrs. Kan turned 21, "Her father used to go the nightclub with her, wait for her to finish and then walk her home."

After marrying Edward Kan, Mrs. Kan and her husband moved to Chicago in 1947 and began a family. They returned to the Bay Area in 1961 and settled in Oakland, where Mrs. Kan lived until moving to Fairfield this year. Edward Kan died in 1977.

In 2001, both the California Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives honored Mrs. Kan for being a pioneer Asian American performer. The certificate of recognition she received from the state Senate praised her "outstanding accomplishments as an Asian American pioneer in the entertainment arena." In its proclamation, Congress commended her for being among the first "to combat discrimination and prejudice against Asian American entertainers" and for helping "introduce the idea that Asian Americans could excel in both the art and entertainment industries."

In addition to Gander, who lives in Melbourne, Australia, Mrs. Kan is survived by daughter Celeste Kan of Auburn Placer County and son Michael Kan of Fairfield.