The lost and future glamour of a Shanghai ballroom

WHEN IT OPENED in 1933, the Paramount ballroom was the belle of Shanghai’s decadent, war-scarred nightlife. Designed by Yang Xiliu, the illuminated Art Deco palace loomed over Bubbling Well Road, drawing starlets, businessmen, gangsters and officers for taxi dances and shows. Its sprung wooden dance floor—and a smaller, underlit crystal one upstairs—enticed clientele including Xu Zhimo (a poet), Zhang Xueliang (a warlord) and Charlie Chaplin. In 1940, while the city was occupied by the Japanese, Chen Manli, a dance star, was shot to death at the Paramount; some say she was an undercover Kuomintang agent and assassinated by the collaborationist regime.