March 25, 2006

As one of the greatest Shanghai movie idols of the 1930s, Ruan Lingyu (whose English name was Lily Yuen) was China's first film actress to win extensive praise from the public. She was born in the city on April 26, 1910 and her life was full of tragedy almost from the beginning, giving her a tragic depth that she was able to transfer on to the screen. Her family was a poor migrant family from Canton. Her father died when she was six, and her mother moved away from Shanghai the following year to work as a housemaid. However her mother managed to send her to a school where she recognized her passion for stage performance the first time. She did some acting in school plays and made her first movie at the age of 16 and quickly became a celebrity.

She was one of the last of the silent divas, still appearing in silent films as late as 1935. She was compared to both Garbo and Gish for her suffering heroines. As the screen-queen Butterfly Wu's main rival to the crown of Shanghai cinema, she was in the movie business for less than 10 years, and left behind 29 movies. Her notable movies are many, including "Love and Duty" (1930), "Three Modern Girls" (1932), "Little Playthings" (1933) and "The Goddess" (1934). She created images of women of different social strata including widows and weak women who were maltreated to death under the feudal code of ethics; prostitutes exploited by despotic gentry and sons of rich families; naive, pure girls of humble birth; young women struggling for free marriage; advanced women who integrated themselves with the laboring people and fought for the interests of the nation; and old women, girl students, a women writer, a flower girl and a social beauty. She evolved a unique style - sincere, simple, natural, and fresh. She was full of enthusiasm, and her consummate skills and unique performances enabled her to reach the highest level of the performing art of Chinese cinema in the silent film period.

Contrast to her success on the screen, her personal life was a tragedy. She fell in love with Zhang Damin, the young master of the house her mother worked, before starting her film career. They lived together eventually. But in a class-divided society they could not get married because of the objection from Zhang's mother. Their relationship deteriorated when she became successful. She later left Zhang and lived with a businessman Tang Jishan. When Zhang sued Tang for damage this became a scandal in 1930s' Shanghai. It was almost unheard of for an unmarried couple to live together. Later, Ruan found that Tang was already married and was having an affair with another actress. An emotionally tumultuous off-screen life, combined with career pressures and the sting of the gossip-mongering press, led to her demise a month before her twenty-fifth birthday. She committed suicide on March 8, 1935 by swallowing an overdose of sleeping tablets. When she died, she left a suicide note that said: "Nothing matters". Her suicide, precipitated by a newspaper campaign, shocked the city. Thousands crowded the streets of Shanghai for her funeral, and three women committed suicide in response. Her funeral took place on March 14 with crowds measured in tens of thousands flooding the streets to mark her passing.

She became a pop icon in 1991 thanks to a shallow but award-winning film biography, Stanley Kwan's "Center Stage" ("Ruan Lingyu", or "The Actress"), starring Maggie Cheung. The movie might not have done her justice, but it is to be credited with making new generations aware of the triumphs and tragedy of one of the true goddesses of the Chinese screen.

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