Ruan Lingyu
| Ruan Lingyu | |
|---|---|
Ruan in 1935
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| Background information | |
| Chinese name | 阮玲玉 |
| Birth name | Ruan Fenggen (阮鳳根) |
| Born |
April 26, 1910 Shanghai, China |
| Died | March 8, 1935 (aged 24) Shanghai, China |
| Other name(s) | Lily Yuen Ruan Yuying |
| Years active | 1927–1935 |
Ruan Fenggen (April 26, 1910 – March 8, 1935), better known as Ruan Lingyu (Chinese: 阮玲玉), was a Chinese silent film actress. One of the most prominent Chinese film stars of the 1930s, her exceptional acting ability and suicide at the age of 24 led her to become an icon of Chinese cinema.
Ruan was born to a working class family in Shanghai. Her father died when she was young, and her mother brought her up working as a housemaid.
In 1926, to help make ends meet, Ruan signed up for the prominent Mingxing Film Company. She made her first film at the age of 16. The film, A Married Couple in Name Only (掛名的夫妻/挂名的夫妻), was directed by Bu Wancang. Two years later, she was signed by Da Zhonghua Baihe Company (大中華百合公司/大中华百合公司), where she shot six films. Her first big break came in Spring Dream of an Old Capital (故都春夢 or Reminiscences of Beijing, 1930) which was a massive hit in China. It was Ruan's first major work after signing with the newly formed Lianhua Studio in 1930. In it, she played a prostitute by the name of Yanyan.
Thereafter, Ruan became Lianhua's major film star. Her most memorable works came after 1931, starting with the melodrama Love and Duty (directed by Bu Wancang). Ruan had by then gained popularity owing to a string of lead roles, and in 1933 she was voted second runner-up in a poll held by Star Daily (明星日報) for China's "movie queen". (Hu Die emerged the winner and Chen Yumei was first runner-up). Beginning with Three Modern Women (1932), Ruan started collaborating with a group of leftist Chinese directors.
In Little Toys (1933), a film by Sun Yu, Ruan played a long-suffering toy-maker. Her next film, The Goddess (1934; dir: Wu Yonggang), is often hailed as the pinnacle of Chinese silent cinema; Ruan sympathetically portrayed a prostitute bringing up a child. Later that year, Ruan made her penultimate film, New Women (directed by Cai Chusheng), in which she played an educated woman forced to death by an unfeeling society. The film was based on the life of actress Ai Xia, who killed herself in 1934. Her final film, National Customs, was released shortly after her death.
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