Chen Yumei

Chen Yumei was born Fei Mengmin (费梦敏) in 1910 in Menghe, Changzhou, Jiangsu province, China. Her father had studied in Japan, and her mother was from Suzhou. She made her film debut at age 13, playing a minor role in the film Song Bai Yuan (松柏缘) made by the film division of the Commercial Press in Shanghai. At age 15 she enrolled at the actress training school of the Laughter Stage, a theatre run by Runje Shaw (Shao Zuiweng), her future husband. In 1926 she joined Tianyi, the film studio recently founded by Shaw, and was selected by Shaw to play the starring role of Qiu Xiang in the film The Flirting Scholar (唐伯虎点秋香). The film was not a great success, and Chen remained a secondary star of Tianyi after Hu Die (Butterfly Wu) and Wu Suxin (吴素馨). In 1928 Tianyi's star actress Hu Die defected to the Mingxing Film Company, Tianyi's main rival, and Chen Yumei replaced her as Tianyi's number one actress. She starred in more than 30 movies made by Tianyi, most notably A Girl Named Yunlan (芸兰姑娘, 1932), Livelihood (生机, 1933), and The Struggle (挣扎, 1933). Many of her roles were of a tragic nature. During an interview, she named Livelihood, a progressive movie banned by the Shanghai Municipal Council, as one of her favourite films. ² She sang many of the theme songs in her movies, several of which topped the charts, and she released a record by Pathé Records. ² Chen Yumei was known for extolling the virtue of frugality and was nicknamed the "frugal star". She frequently appeared in public wearing a cheongsam made of plain cloth, and was once seen smoking a very cheap brand of cigarettes at a high-profile party. ² In 1933, Chen Dieyi (陈蝶衣), publisher of the newspaper Star Daily (明星日报), organized China's first public poll for the most popular movie stars. Fans across the country, as well as some from Japan, participated in the poll, and the results were unveiled in a public ceremony on 28 February. Chen Yumei's former colleague Hu Die was the runaway winner, and was crowned the "Movie Queen" with 21,334 votes. Chen Yumei came in second with 14,000 votes, and was also crowned the "Movie Queen". At the peak of her career, she married Runje Shaw in 1934 and retired from acting. She had six children with Shaw, and lived a quiet life away from the public eye. She died in 1985 in Shanghai. ¹