Fifi Young
Fifi Young Young 1st joined the Dewi Dja' troupe as a dancer, using the pseudonym Dewi Maria.. She later switched to Miss Riboet, where she married the playwright Njoo Cheong Seng when she was 14. The elder man coached her in acting and convinced her to take the stage name Fifi Young ; Young was the Mandarin equivalent of Njoo's Hokkien surname, while Fifi was meant to be reminiscent of the French actress Fifi D'Orsay. With Miss Riboet, Young travelled throughout South East Asia, including in British Malaya. In 1930 the couple established the Moonlight Crystal Follies in Penang, where Young had her 1st acting job. By the mid-1930s Young and Njoo had switched to the Dardanella troupe. Young was one of the group's stars, and after most of the group went abroad Young and Njoo established their own troupe, Fifi Young 's Pagoda, in 1937. After the success of Albert Balink's Terang Boelan in 1937 and The Teng Chun's Alang-Alang in 1939, four new film studios wer...