Chinese-American actress Cheng Pei-Pei dies at 78

By   |  Jul 22, 2024

Chinese-American actress Cheng Pei-Pei (鄭佩佩) has died at the age of 78 in San Francisco. According to her family on Facebook, she “passed away peacefully at home surrounded by her loved ones on July 17”.

Born in Shanghai in 1946, Cheng was the eldest of four siblings. Her father was a KMT member who worked for the Shanghai Municipal Police in Shanghai International Settlement. In 1952, when Cheng was 6, her father was labeled a counter-revolutionary and sent to a labour camp in Inner Mongolia; she never saw him again and he died in 1963 without his family knowing. Cheng’s mother, who was initially her father’s secretary and later his concubine, decided to change the children’s surname to her own to protect them from their father’s political consequences.

Cheng attended school in Shanghai where she studied ballet for six years. In the mid-1950s, her mother and siblings moved to Hong Kong, leaving Cheng to live alone for a few years before she joined them in 1960. In 1963, she was admitted to the training programme at the Shaw Brothers Studio and after graduating, she joined the studio and made her film debut in ‘The Lotus Lamp’ (1965). Cheng followed this up with her first female lead role in the Taiwanese drama film ‘Lovers’ Rock’ (1964).

Due to her Mandarin skills and dance background, Cheng quickly worked her way up in the industry. Her big breakout came in the form of the 1966 Hong Kong wuxia film ‘Come Drink with Me’, directed by King Hu. The film follows a skilled swordswoman (Cheng) as she sets out on a mission to rescue her brother from a violent gang looking to secure the release of their leader.

In 1970, at the peak of her career, Cheng married Taiwanese businessman Yuan Wen-Tung. She subsequently retired from acting and moved to the United States for her husband’s business endeavours. She attended business school at the University of California and also taught Chinese dance in Southern California. In the 1980s, Cheng founded a television production company in the United States and travelled across Hawaii and Northern California at her own expense to produce a documentary series about Chinese Americans. In 1987, she divorced Yuan but continued to live with him for two years. In 1989, her company declared bankruptcy, and Cheng moved out of their house.

Cheng successfully returned to acting in the 1990s with the Hong Kong comedy ‘Flirting Scholar’. In 2000, she garnered international attention with her role as Jade Fox in ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, directed by Ang Lee, whom Cheng had befriended in the 90s when she was the host of KSCI’s Mandarin talk show, Pei-Pei’s Time.

As the 2000s approached, Cheng became active across Greater China with Chinese TV dramas such as ‘Young Justice Bao’ (2000), ‘Chinese Paladin’ (2004), and ‘The Patriot Yue Fei’ (2012), as well as Singaporean TV dramas ‘Spring of Life’ (2002) and ‘Women of Times’ (2006). She gained new popularity among the younger generation with the Chinese reality show ‘Divas Hit the Road’ (2014). Her notable international credits include ‘Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li’ (2009), ‘Lilting’ (2014), ‘Meditation Park’ (2017), and ‘Mulan’ (2020).

In 2019, Cheng was diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration, but chose to keep the diagnosis private and spend her remaining time with her children and grandchildren.

Cheng Pei-Pei’s undeniable talent will leave a lasting legacy for many generations to come. Our thoughts go out to her family and friends at this time.


Come Drink With Me (1966)

Flirting Scholar (1993)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Source: Wikipedia

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