Life and career

Born Martha Virginia Wing, she began working onscreen at age 9; her father, Paul Wing, was an assistant director for Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures

Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

. In 1931 she became one of the first Goldwyn Girls

Goldwyn Girls

The Goldwyn Girls were a musical stock company of female dancers employed by Samuel Goldwyn. Famous actresses whose career included a stint in the Goldwyn Girls include Lucille Ball, Paulette Goddard, Betty Grable, Ann Sothern, Jane Wyman, Virginia Bruce, Virginia Grey, Mary Meade, and Virginia...

, and in 1932 she was seen in Mack Sennett

Mack Sennett

Mack Sennett was a Canadian-born American director and was known as the innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the "King of Comedy"...

-produced comedies made by Paramount, one starring Bing Crosby

Bing Crosby

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....

. Wing made an impression with producers and moviegoers but she seldom broke through to leading roles. Many of her roles were small and barely clothed, before the introduction of the 1934 Production Code, but she became widely recognized as a sex symbol. Since her contracted studio was mired in bankruptcy during much of her career, much of her work was done on loan, primarily at Warner Bros.

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

 and later, after her release, on extremely low budget efforts on a per-film basis. Wing enjoyed a far more successful sideline doing product endorsements and was featured in innumerable fan magazines from 1933-38. She was also well known offscreen for her romances, and was linked to Jackie Coogan

Jackie Coogan

John Leslie Coogan , known professionally as Jackie Coogan, was an American actor who began his movie career as a child actor in silent films. Many years later, he became known as Uncle Fester on 1960s sitcom The Addams Family...

 (to whom she was engaged during much of 1935), Maurice Chevalier

Maurice Chevalier

Maurice Auguste Chevalier was a French actor, singer, entertainer and a noted Sprechgesang performer. He is perhaps best known for his signature songs, including Louise, Mimi, Valentine, and Thank Heaven for Little Girls and for his films including The Love Parade and The Big Pond...

, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. was an American politician. He was the fifth child of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sr. and his wife Eleanor.-Personal life:...

.

Toby Wing played a few leading roles in B features and short subjects. In 1936 and 1937 she worked opposite singer-songwriter Pinky Tomlin

Pinky Tomlin

Pinky Tomlin was a singer, songwriter, and bandleader of the 1930s and 1940s. He also acted in occasional motion pictures. During his lifetime, he wrote and published 22 songs, several of which were in the top ten on the "Hit Parade." In 1938, a song he had written, titled "In Ole Oklahoma," was...

 in two of his low budget musical features, With Love and Kisses and Sing While You're Able. The two stars were engaged briefly during late 1937. Although the romance ended before their planned marriage, they remained close until Tomlin's death.

Her last leading role was in The Marines Come Thru (filmed in Florida in 1938, but not seeing general release until 1942 as Fight On, Marines!). She retired from movies after marrying the pilot Dick Merrill

Dick Merrill

Henry Tyndall "Dick" Merrill was an early aviation pioneer. Among his feats he was the highest paid air mail pilot, flew the first round-trip transatlantic flight in 1936, was Dwight D...

, more than twenty years her senior, in 1938. Wing completed her acting career on Broadway in the unsuccessful Cole Porter

Cole Porter

Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...

 musical, "You Never Know" that starred Lupe Vélez

Lupe Vélez

Lupe Vélez was a Mexican film actress. Vélez began her career in Mexico as a dancer, before moving to the U.S. where she worked in vaudeville. She was seen by Fanny Brice who promoted her, and Vélez soon entered films, making her first appearance in 1924. By the end of the decade she had...

, Clifton Webb

Clifton Webb

Clifton Webb was an American actor, dancer, and singer known for his Oscar-nominated roles in such films as Laura, The Razor's Edge, and Sitting Pretty...

, Libby Holman

Libby Holman

Libby Holman was an American torch singer and stage actress who also achieved notoriety for her complex and unconventional personal life.-Early life:...

 and Harold Murray. The couple retired to DiLido, Florida, where Merrill was assigned Eastern Airlnes' New York- Miami route for the remainder of his career. Wing became successful in real estate

Real estate

In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...

 in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 and Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

. Wing and Merrill later settled in Virginia, where they lived together until Merrill's death in 1982.

The Merrills had two sons, and survived both of them. Their first child died of what was then-termed as "Crib Death" and her second son, Ricky, was murdered in their Miami home in September, 1982 at age 42. His murder was related to his involvement in a large scale marijuana smuggling operation in New Orleans. At the time of his death he was free on appeal of a drug smuggling conviction. The Merrills were living in Virginia at the time and the case is still listed as unsolved.

Wing's father, who was a career reserve Army officer, was reactivated for service prior to WW2 and was captured by the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942. He survived the Bataan Death March

Bataan Death March

The Bataan Death March was the forcible transfer, by the Imperial Japanese Army, of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war after the three-month Battle of Bataan in the Philippines during World War II, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of prisoners.The march was characterized by...

 and was later rescued in the Raid at Cabanatuan

Raid at Cabanatuan

The Raid at Cabanatuan was a rescue of Allied prisoners of war and civilians from a Japanese camp near Cabanatuan City, in the Philippines...

 by U.S. Army Rangers and Filipino guerillas, a story told in The Great Raid

The Great Raid

The Great Raid is a 2005 war film about the Raid at Cabanatuan, adapted from William Breuer's book of the same name. It tells the story of the January 1945 liberation of the Cabanatuan Prison Camp on the Philippine island of Luzon during World War II. It is directed by John Dahl and stars Benjamin...

(2005). Paul Wing died in 1957.

The couple was survived by 2 granddaughters and Ricky Merrill's estranged wife, Hella.

Her sister, Pat Wing (Gill) (1916–2002) was also an actress and chorus girl, who largely worked for Warner Bros.

Her brother, Paul Reuben Wing (1926–1998) was a billionaire real estate mogul who led a quiet life away from the limelight of "Hollywood Fame" in Lake Elsinore, California.

Filmography

Features:

• A Boy of Flanders (1924)
• A Woman Who Sinned (1924)
• Circe, the Enchantress (1924)
• The Pony Express (1925)
• American Pluck (1925)
• Double Daring (1926)
• Palmy Days
  Palmy Days
  Palmy Days is a 1931 musical comedy written by Eddie Cantor, Morrie Ryskind, and David Freedman, directed by A. Edward Sutherland, and choreographed by Busby Berkeley...
  
  (1931)
• The Kid from Spain (1932)
• The King's Vacation (1933)
• 42nd Street
  42nd Street (film)
  -Cast:*Warner Baxter as Julian Marsh, director*Bebe Daniels as Dorothy Brock, star*George Brent as Pat Denning, Dorothy's old vaudeville partner*Ruby Keeler as Peggy Sawyer, the newcomer*Guy Kibbee as Abner Dillon, the show's backer...
  
  (1933)
• The Little Giant (1933)
• Central Airport (1933) (scenes deleted)
• Private Detective 62 (1933)
• Baby Face
  Baby Face (film)
  Baby Face is a 1933 American dramatic film directed by Alfred E. Green, and starring Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent. Based on a story by Darryl F. Zanuck , this sexually-charged, Pre-Code Hollywood film is about an attractive young woman who uses sex to advance her social and financial status...
  
  (1933)
• College Humor (1933)
• She Had to Say Yes (1933)
• This Day and Age (1933)
• Torch Singer
  Torch Singer
  Torch Singer is a 1933 film made by Paramount Pictures, directed by Alexander Hall and George Somnes, and starring Claudette Colbert, Ricardo Cortez and David Manners and Lyda Roberti.The screenplay was written by Lenore J...
  
  (1933)
• Search for Beauty (1934)
• School for Girls (1934)
• Come on Marines (1934)
• Murder at the Vanities
  Murder at the Vanities
  Murder at the Vanities is a musical film based on the 1933 Broadway musical with music by Victor Young, made in the pre-Code era, and released by Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Mitchell Leisen, stars Carl Brisson, Jack Oakie, Kitty Carlisle, Gertrude Michael, Toby Wing, and Jessie Ralph...
  
  (1934)
• Kiss and Make Up (1934)
• One Hour Late (1934)
• Thoroughbred (1935)
• Two for Tonight (1935)
• Forced Landing (1935)
• Mister Cinderella (1936)
• With Love and Kisses (1936)
• Silks and Saddles (1936)
• Sing While You're Able (1937)
• The Women Men Marry
  The Women Men Marry
  The Women Men Marry is a 1937 Hollywood film. The film stars George Murphy, Josephine Hutchinson, Claire Dodd and Toby Wing and was directed by Errol Taggart. The filmscript is credited to Donald Henderson Clarke....
  
  (1937)
• True Confession (1937)
• Mr. Boggs Steps Out (1938)
• The Marines Come Thru (1938)
• Sweethearts (1938)

Short Subjects:

• Jimmy's New Yacht (1932)
• The Loud Mouth (1932)
• The Candid Camera (1932)
• Alaska Love (1932)
• Ma's Pride and Joy (1932)
• Blue of the Night (1933)
• Rhythm on the Roof (1934)
• Star Night at the Cocoanut Grove (1934)
• Hollywood Extra Girl (1935)
• La Fiesta de Santa Barbara
  La Fiesta de Santa Barbara
  La Fiesta de Santa Barbara is a 1935 short comedy film directed by Louis Lewyn. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 1936 for Best Short Subject...
  
  (1935)
• Hill-Tillies (1936)
• Rhythmitis (1936)
• Sunday Night at the Trocadero (1937)

External links

• Photographs