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'Zhou Xuan' (周璇, Wades-Giles: Chou Hsuan) (1 August 1918 - 22 September 1957, Shanghai) was a popular Chinese singer and film actress. By the 1940s, she had become one of the Seven great singing stars^[1]. She is probably the most well-known of the seven, as she had a concurrent movie career until 1953.

Contents

Biography

Career

Legacy

Movie Credits

References

External links

Biography

Zhou was born Su Pu (蘇璞) and was separated from her natural parents at a young age, and was raised by adoptive parents. She spent her entire life searching for her biological parents and her parentage was never established until after her death.^[2] At 13 she took Zhou Xuan as her stage name, 'Xuan', which means beautiful jade in Chinese.

Career

Zhou started acting in 1935, but she achieved stardom in 1937 in ''Street Angel'', when director Yuan Muzhi cast her as one of the leads as a singing girl.
"Golden Voice" was Zhou's nickname to commend her singing talents after a singing competition in Shanghai, where she came in second¹. Zhou rapidly became the most famous and marketable popular singer in the gramophone era up to her death, singing many famous tunes from her own movies. Her frail but eminently musical voice captured the hearts of millions of Chinese of her time.
After introducing "Nights of Shanghai" (夜上海), Zhou returned to Shanghai. She spent the next few years in and out of mental institutions owing to frequent breakdowns. Through the years, Zhou led a complicated and unhappy life marked by her failed marriages, illegitimate children and suicide attempts.
Having made a total of 43 movies. Her favourite film was always ''Street Angel'' (馬路天使). This contained two theme songs: "Four Seasons Song" (四季歌) and "The Wandering Songstress" (天涯歌女) which enjoyed long-lasting popularity.
In 1957 she passed away in Shanghai in a mental asylum during the Anti-Rightist Movement^[3]. There is the possibility that the cause of death was encephalitis following a nervous breakdown at the age of only 39.

Legacy

To this day, Zhou Xuan's songs still remain a staple in many Golden Oldies collections in Mandarin popular music.
Her biography is told in adapted materials. One of them is TVB's ''Song Bird'' (天涯歌女) in 1989, starring Nadia Chan as Zhou Xuan and Leon Lai as her lover. In this series, Xuan's songs were re-written in Cantonese, sung by her in solo. In duets, she sang with him in the serial while (under the limits of Crown Records) Deric Wan replaced Lai's vocals in the soundtrack album. Another is China serial titled after the singer's name, starring Cecilia Cheung.

Movie Credits

★ 狂歡之夜 (1935)

★ Street Angel (馬路天使, 1937)

★ 西廂記 (1940)

★ 孟麗君 (1940)

★ 夜店 (1947)

★ 長相思 (1947)

★ 清宮秘史 (1948)

★ 花外流鶯 (1948)

★ 歌女之歌 (1948)

★ 莫負青春 (1949)

★ 花街 (1950)

References

1. Baidu. "Baidu." ''Bai Guang.'' Retrieved on 2007-04-28.
2. ent tom.com
3. Atkins, Taylor. [2003] (2003) Jazz Planet. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1578066093

External links

★ Zhou Xuan at China's Movie Database

★

★ Zhou Xuan at the Chinese Movie Database