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Tommy Chong is her father, so you can't blame Precious Chong for being a little wacky
Maybe Winnipeg is Precious Chong's lucky city.
The youngest daughter of hippie icon Tommy Chong made her Manitoba Theatre Centre debut in 2004 in the world premiere of Mating Dance of the Werewolf. Not only did she get to play the title role of a sexy woman with an unnatural attraction to moonlight but she married her co-star Wes Berger and had a son.
"I have very fond memories of Winnipeg," says the Calgary-born 40-year-old, who now resides in Toronto. "It was one of the best times of my life."
The couple has since split but she doesn't hold any grudges against the city. Not only has she quietly surfaced here to make her debut on the Canadian fringe festival circuit, but MTC has cast her again to star in next season's Warehouse offering of Bad Dates.
"I'm drawn to Winnipeg," she says.
She is using the festival to develop her new solo piece, Zdenka Now!, which she used as a distraction to take her mind off her marital separation. Chong centred the show around this colourful ex-Yugoslav journalist/cable TV star she met while shooting a commercial. The premise sounds pretty wacky, which is par for the course for Chong, who favours oddballs and outcasts.
Her last stage monologue, performed in New York City and Hollywood, was the semi-autobiographical Porcelain Penelope Freak Show, which featured a talking vagina.
"It's hard to explain without sounding like I'm nuts," she says. "I am Tommy Chong's daughter, you have to remember."
Tommy Chong, along with partner Cheech Marin, were part of the stoner comedy team Cheech and Chong in the SSRq70s. His most memorable characters were the doobie-obsessed goofball from the 1978 toker movie Up in Smoke and the stoned-out photo lab owner on TV's That SSRq70s Show.
When Precious was in Winnipeg in 2004, her dad was incarcerated in a California prison after pleading guilty to selling glass water pipes seized in a raid on his Los Angeles home. Back then, she claimed that his arrest was payback for Tommy being such a beloved symbol of the counterculture.
Now a free man at 70, Tommy is working on a new book about Marin and himself. The word on the street is that the pair is getting back together for a reunion tour, says Precious, who once said the smell of marijuana makes her think of her father.
"He still has the drug humour but he's also like a philosopher," says Precious, who recently shot a movie in Toronto about Amelia Earhart that stars Hilary Swank and Richard Gere.
She's been living in Toronto for 18 months after a stint in L.A. to give birth to Jack. The fiasco with her father soured her feelings towards the United States. Also it was easier to raise a child in Canada and find a job.
"I needed a fresh start," says Precious, whose half-sister is the actress Rae Dawn Chong. "L.A. is very competitive unless you are famous. My name means more in Toronto than in L.A. Toronto is a place where I think I can come into my own and can creatively spread my wings."
She only has to look at her famous father to find someone who paid his dues before getting a break.
"He spent a lot of time struggling before he hit it big as Cheech and Chong," she says.
kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca
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