She was born in New York City to an inter-religious couple; her father, a producer of vaudeville shows, was Jewish, while her mother, a dancer in Florenz Ziegfeld's Midnight Frolic, was not.

Their relationship was dealt a severe blow with the 1953 death of their 2-1/2 year old daughter, Pree, from pneumonia related to a congenital heart defect.

[5] Charlie Parker died just a year and a week after their daughter, in 1955, not long before he would have turned 35.

[6] Two years after Parker's death, Chan married saxophonist Phil Woods and moved to France, where she spent much of the rest of her life.

In 1981, Chan helped write and edit a book of photographs of Charlie Parker titled To Bird with Love[7][8] and later wrote the autobiographical memoir My Life in E-Flat.