Posted 2016/11/11
Ruan Lingyu (Chinese: 阮玲玉; pinyin: Ruǎn Língyù; April 26, 1910 – March 8, 1935) whose original name is Ruan Fenggen (阮凤根), was a Chinese silent film actress. She was one of the most prominent Chinese film stars of the 1930s, whose early and tragic death at the age of 24 have led her to become an icon of Chinese cinema.
Career
Ruan was born in 1910 in Shanghai and began her first film for the then prominent Mingxing Film Studio. She was brought up by her mother who worked as a house maid to provide for her. Her first big break came in Spring Dream of an Old Capital (故都春梦 or Reminiscences of Beijing, 1930). A massive hit, it was her first major work after signing for the newly-formed Lianhua Studio.
Thereafter Ruan became the company's major film star. Her best works came after 1931, starting with the melodrama Love and Duty (戀愛與義務, 1931) (directed by Bu Wancang). Beginning with Three Modern Women (三个摩登女性, 1932; dir: Bu Wanchang), Ruan started collaborating with a group of talented leftist directors; most of her subsequent films have a strong socialist slant to them. In Little Toys (小玩意, 1933), a film by Sun Yu, Ruan played a long-suffering toy-maker. Her next film, Shennü (神女, The Goddess, 1934; dir: Wu Yonggang), is often hailed as the pinnacle of Chinese silent cinema, with Ruan's portrayal of a sympathetic prostitute bringing up a child one of the classics of the era. Later that year, Ruan made her penultimate film, New Women (新女性), with director Cai Chusheng, where she played an educated Shanghai woman forced to death by an unfeeling society. A final film, National Custom (國風) was released shortly after her death.
Death
Ruan's death mainly attribute to the outside pressure and vindictive tabloidsw. Following the completion of New Women, Ruan's life began to unravel. The film opened in February 1935, Shanghai. Cai Chusheng, under massive pressure from street tabloids, who were retaliating for a scathing depiction of them in New Women, was forced to make extensive cuts to the film. Even then, Ruan's private life was mercilessly hoarded upon by tabloids and her on-going lawsuit with her first husband became a source of vindictive coverage. Faced with these public issues as well as with intense private problems, Ruan poisoned herself with an overdose of barbiturates in Shanghai on March 8, 1935, at the age of 24. Her released death note apparently contained a line which says "Gossip Is a fearful thing", although some have doubted the note's authenticity. Her funeral procession was reportedly three miles long, with three women committing suicide during the event. Even China's preeminent intellectual Lu Xun was appalled at the details surrounding Ruan's death, and wrote an essay denouncing the tabloids.
