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The New Orleans Item Jan. 19, '42

2 Pretty Foreigners Here Sure Lands Will Be Free Again

Two pretty foreigners from invaded lands, one a French actress who's used to the words, "Show your legs and smile," the other a Chinese aviatrix who learned to speak American with an English accent in Switzerland, said here today that they know their lands will be free some day. 

Aviation will rebuild her nation, and free it from the Japanese, said Miss Lee Ya Ching, petite, bubbling with laughter when not speaking of war.

French determination and will to be freemen will relieve La Belle France from the yoke of the Nazis, said Michele Morgan, slender, natural, with warmly tanned skin and sky-blue eyes.

Both will appear in the pageant, "It's Fun To Be Free," at the St. Charles theatre this week. They're only two of the glamor girls who will appear at the nightly performances.

Miss Lee–that's her surname, and it's pronounced just as you'd expect–said that she thought it quite nice that she'd be interviewed on the famous confederate general's birthday. "I admire him very much," she said.

Her first name, Ya Ching, means "Glow of Sunset." She is very aptly named. She does glow, but more like a firefly than a glowworm. She's China's No. 1 aviatrix, her father, a wealthy Chinese industrial leader now in Japanese-held Hong Kong, encouraging her to fly. 

The women are fighting right along with the men in China," she said. "We're determined to win, and with General Chiang Kai-Shek to lead us, we will drive the Japanese back to their earthquake-y little island.

"The first thing they said to me when I got to America was 'show your legs and smile'," said Miss Morgan, clossing her legs and smiling. "Shoot."

Extremely slender, Miss Morgan looks just as American as a wavy-haired brownette from Poughkeepsie. She's been here for a little over a year, and her first starring picture will open in New York, with the star in the audience, later this week. She has been an actress, since, at the age of 15, she ran away from her home in the Dieppe, took a name, Michele, that she always liked, tacked Morgan onto it, and that was the theatrical beginning of Michele Morgan.

In Opening Program
Miss Morgan will appear on tonight's opening program, which is dedicated to Free France, Holland and Belgium. She was greeted on her arrival at the New Orleans air port by her manager, Terry Turner, Walter C. Carey, general chairman of arrangements for the production here, and Mrs. Carey.

Miss Ching will appear on the Tuesday night's program with Anna May Wong, Chinese-American screen star. Miss Ching acted as official good will ambassadress from the Chinese government to the New York World's Fair, and has made a solo flight to the principal Central and South American cities. She was in New Orleans in April, 1939, and is the only woman member of the exclusive American "Caterpillar club," made up of flyers who have had to bail out of their planes. She is staying at the Bienville and Miss Morgan is at the Roosevelt.