Ruan Lingyu, Beautiful Chinese actress in the 1930s Options

[kunomchu]

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Born Ruan FengGen in a Cantonese family in Shanghai on 26th April 1910,
Ruan Lingyu has gone through a tough and poor childhood. Her father,
Ruan Yongrong passed away in 1916. Later, her mother becomes a servant in the wealthy Zhang household, where she met the son of the house, Zhang Damin, her first lover to-be. In 1918. Ruan entered the ChongDe Girls Academy with the school name Ruan Yuying. At the age of 16, Ruan dropped out of school and began to cohabitate with Zhang Damin, as his common-law wife. However, Out of her expectation, Zhang damin never be a responsible and loyal husband, but a scoundrel and a wastrel. Ruan realized that she couldn't rely on him anymore and thus, she began to seek for job to support her family. In 1926, with the help of Zhang HuiChong, (Zhang Damin's elder brother, a well known movie star in 20's), Ruan went through the audition for the role in Richard Poh's film "The Nominal Couple", which it later became her debut. In the meantime, she entered MingXing Studio and have her own stage name, Ruan Lingyu. Soon, she adopted a daughter, XiaoYu.
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Ruan Lingyu began her acting career in The MingXing Studio, the prominent studio at that time, and appeared in 5 films. Due to the ignorence and isolation by Zhang Shichuan, the premier director of MingXing. Ruan left Mingxing and joined Da ZhongHua Baihe Studio in 1928, where she appeared in several inferior films. Ruan's career was at a low ebb for quite a long time until she join the newly established progressive studio, LianHua film studio( UPS) in 1930, the place where her golden era began and remained for the rest of her career. After the success of LianHua blockbuster debut, the Reminiscence Of Peking, Ruan rocketed to the pinnacle of
Shanghai stardom and become one of the most celebrated starlet.　

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In 1932, Ruan fled to HongKong during the invasion of Japanese towards Shanghai. When the situation became stable, Ruan returned to Shanghai and involved in her first leftist inspired film, Three Modern Women, which brought her to another peak of her career. In 1933, Ruan the first runner up in the Movie Queen contest and TopTen stars election organized by the local magazines and newspaper. Ruan makes her most acclaimed films between 1933-1934, they include The Goddess and New Woman. Ironically, New Woman is a story inspired by the real-life suicide of actress Ai Xia .　

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Although Ruan's succeed in her acting career, personal relationships with her estranged husband, Zhang Damin , and her lover, Tang Jishan, caused scandal among high society and she innocently hounded by the tabloid press concerning scandals in her personal life. Futhermore, both Tang Jishan and Zhang Damin were highly abusive and unfaithful towards her.


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Unable to bear with her unhappy love life and the sting of the gossip-mongering press, on March 8th 1935, she committed suicide, taking overdose of sleeping pils in Tang Jishan's residence, leaving two final notes with bitter statement and final will. Ruan Lingyu has gone, and she never woke up again...

She died at the age of 24.


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I recommend you guys to go rent the movie "goddess." Its a silent movie but its really good.

This post has been edited by kunomchu: Sep 20 2005, 10:58 PM

[meiki]

interesting, maybe we should make a new topic with pictures of chinese actresses in the old time. I think Gong Li would fit in, she´s gorgeous.