Toby Wing

With her cotton-candy hairdo and infectious smile, Richmond's Toby Wing (born Martha Virginia Wing) was the quintessential Hollywood chorus girl, rarely given much to do but always awarded choice close-ups as Busby Berkeley's kaleidoscopic cameras panned over or below Warner Bros.' line of chorines. In films from childhood, Wing first gained notice as one of the Goldwyn Girls gracing Eddie Cantor's Palmy Days (1931) and The Kid From Spain (1932), and she was highly visible in (and the very picture of) 42nd Street's "Young and Healthy" number. But when all is said and done, Wing did more cheesecake layouts than actual performing and she later became something of a joke. Retired since 1943, when she married aviator/stunt pilot Dick Merrill, a still very attractive Toby Wing appeared in the television documentary Busby Berkeley: Going Through the Roof (1998). Her sister, Pat Wing, was also a Hollywood chorus girl. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide