Everything About Jack Soo's wife

Posted by Filiberto Hargett on Monday, June 17, 2024

04 Feb 2024, 00:00

Jan Zdelar is a former model and also the wife of Jack Soo. Jan Zdelar’s husband Jack was an American singer and actor. He was best known for his role as Detective Nick Yemana on the television sitcom Barney Miller.

Bio Summary: Jan Zdelar

Full NameJan Zdelar
famous asWife of Jack Soo
Age at Time of Death80 years old
Date of Birth15 Jan 1924
Place of Birth Ohio, United States of America
Date of Death3 Feb 2004
Date of DeathLos Angeles County, California, USA
Zodiac signCapricorn
NationalityAmerican
EthnicityCaucasian
children Jayne Suzuki, Richard Suzuki, James Suzuki
HusbandJack Soo

Jan Zdelar was born on 15 January 1924 in Ohio, the United States of America to her parents. Her Zodiac sign is Capricorn. Jan passed away at the age of 80 on 3 Febuary 2004 according to findagrave profile. She died in Los Angeles County, California, USA. Jan was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles County, California, USA. She is buried at plot Eternal Love section, Map #E19, Lot 3980, Ground Interment Space 4.

Jan Zdelar and Jack soo

How did Jack soo and his wife Jan Zdelar meet? Soo met Jan Zdelar in Cleveland, Ohio. Friends describe it as love at first sight. Jan did not care that Soo was Japanese. The couple dated for a while before deciding to take their relationship a step further by getting married. The couple got married in a beautiful ceremony in the presence of their friends, family, and loved ones. The couple got married in 1942.

Their marriage was blessed with three beautiful children and later two grandchildren. Their children are  Jayne Suzuki, Richard Suzuki, and James Suzuki. Jan Zdelar and her husband Jack Soo remained married until his death in 1978. The couple were married for almost 4 decades before his sad dismay.

How did Jack Soo Die?

Jan Zdelar’s husband, Soo, a smoker, was diagnosed with esophageal cancer during Barney Miller‘s fourth season (1977–1978), missing the last five episodes. He returned for the opening of season five, but cancer spread quickly, and Soo died on January 11, 1979, at age 61, at the University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center (now the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center). His last appearance on the show was in the episode entitled “The Vandal”, which aired on November 9, 1978.

A running joke on the show was that Yemana made bad coffee. “It must have been my coffee,” Soo joked when he was being wheeled into surgery. A retrospective episode showing clips of Soo aired at the end of the season, which concluded with the cast members raising their coffee cups in a final farewell toast to him.

Jack Soo’s Career

Jan Zdelar’s husband, Soo finally earned his big break in 1958 when he was cast in the Broadway musical hit Flower Drum Song in the role of the show’s master of ceremonies and comedian Frankie Wing (“Gliding through my memoree”). He was working in San Francisco at the Forbidden City, a Chinese nightclub and cabaret, where he was discovered by the dancer-director of Flower Drum Song, Gene Kelly. 

He was offered the chance to go to Broadway on the condition that he change his name to something Chinese, as Flower Drum Song is set in San Francisco’s Chinatown. At that time, he adopted the surname that he had used to leave the internment camp at Topaz, “Soo”. Soo switched to the Sammy Fong role (Chinatown’s “Nathan Detroit”) during the run and played the role when the film version (1961) of the musical was made.

Soo was first broadcast across America by Jack Benny on November 27, 1962, as the tough-talking, street-wise talent agent in “Jack Meets Japanese Agent”. In 1964, Soo played a weekly supporting role as Rocky Sin, a poker-playing con artist in Valentine’s Day, a comedy television series starring Anthony Franciosa that lasted for one season. 

During the next decade, Jan Zdelar’s husband appeared in films such as The Green Berets as a colonel of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and the 1967 musical Thoroughly Modern Millie, as well as making guest appearances on TV shows such as Hawaii Five-O, The Odd Couple, and two episodes of M*A*S*H.

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