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March 2022
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In Loving Memory of Leslie Cheung (on the 18th anniversary of his passing d. April 1, 2003)3/4/2021 Actually, I do not know Leslie Cheung (張國榮) well, although our paths did cross. When his career took off in Hong Kong, I was toiling in Toronto doing something fraught with difficulties, totally thankless, and certainly not rewarding financially ... that was starting a national Chinese language television station on a shoestring. When one is young, naive, and full of impossible dreams, one will do the darndest thing. But that's another story. Today, I'll talk about my remembrance of Leslie Cheung. For those who do not know who Leslie Cheung was, I'll provide the following short introduction. Leslie Cheung was simply one of the most popular and iconic singer-actor in Hong Kong during the 1980's and 1990's. His unforgettable performance as the opera singer in Chen Kaige's masterpiece "Farewell My Concubine" established him as a serious actor. Leslie was very handsome and was therefore a heart-throb for his female fans. He came out however as a bisexual person and was having a long term homosexual relationship. On April 1st, 2003, Leslie jumped off a tall building and ended his life. Now, onward to the story of my encounters with Leslie Cheung. It starts with me finishing school in Canada. (From Farewell My Concubine) After graduating from McMaster University with an engineering degree in 1977, I returned to Hong Kong upon the expiry of my student visa. Although I had applied for immigration to Canada, the process would keep me in Hong Kong at least until the end of 1978 or early 1979. When I saw an ad from RTV (later ATV) hiring production assistants, I decided to give it a try. It was not something I went to school for, but I had grown up watching movies being made in a film studio. My uncle's (mother's younger sister's husband) father was a film studio boss. Many famous Hong Kong movie stars of old came from his National Studio (國家片場). In Hong Kong's television industry of those days, production assistant (PA) is the euphemism for slave. You basically do anything your boss tells you to, and if anything goes wrong, you're the goat. "No" and "can't" do not exist in your vocabulary. Once, my producer was in charge of a dance-a-thon; I was on my feet for three days straight. I outlasted all the dancers. There is no home and no family. There are no weekends and no holidays. You don't eat, drink, or sleep if there is no time. There is only your job which makes sure programming goes on air on time. on budget, and without a hitch. And the salary wasn't enough to pay for lunch. I have had a single business meal in China that cost more than twice the monthly pay of a PA. Many PA newbies did not survive past the first week. Those who did were probably deranged. Most TV producers started their careers as PAs. If you can survive and thrive as a PA, you can probably succeed in anything anywhere. I ended up building a national TV station from scratch in Canada and running it under very adverse conditions. There was also no orientation at RTV. I was simply thrown into a production that needed a PA. Given the job description, it can be understood that PAs didn't survive very long. They either got promoted or they'd quit. My group was composed of three producers and three PAs. We produced five half-hour youth programs each week. The program was titled "New Generation" (新一代). One of the program's hosts became very famous. In fact he is the host of the Online Concert in Memory of Leslie Cheung, Lawrence Cheng (鄭丹瑞), We worked together on a daily basis for almost a year. Another host became the top billing actress in a well known comedy with the Hui brothers, The Contract (賣身契), but that was about it. Her name is Tiffany Bao (鮑翠玲). My direct superior, producer-director Philip Chow (周偉材) would go on to head the Commercial Radio Hong Kong organization (香港商業電臺). Bravo! (Lawrence Cheng) My most awesome experience at RTV actually happened on my first day. I did not know anyone yet. There was no human resources staff to show me around or introduce me to people. I was still finding my bearings. When lunch time came, I went to the canteen and ate lunch by myself. It turned out that the canteen was not popular and nobody ate there. The only other people eating there that day was the staff of a variety show's studio shoot, occupying two large tables. I sat at the opposite corner of the room, so nobody was bothering anybody. And then, something strange happened. (Deanie Ip) A young woman walked over, and without introducing herself or saying hello, pointed at me and warned, "Young man, do not marry before thirty." This weird woman turned out to be the star of the variety show "Have a Laugh with Deanie" (德嫻笑一笑). Her name is Deanie Ip (葉德嫻), who would become a big movie star and eventually win the Venice Film Festival's Coppa Volpi for Best Actress for her performance in "A Simple Life" (桃姐). On that day we first met, she was already the star of her own show, and I was a lowly PA on his first day at the job, with very bad odds for lasting the week. Completely on her own initiative, with absolutely zero staring or ogling on my part--I was minding my own business chewing the rubbery chicken—she walked across the breadth of the room to befriend me in that strange manner, and we became fast friends. I did not pay heed to her admonishment and I guess we know what happened. All the producers and PAs at RTV worked out of a large room, so that everyone sort of knew everyone else, even if you had never worked together on any projects. After settling down at my job, I began to notice a skinny young man in bell bottom pants and platform shoes frequently wandering into the producers' room. He was a new artiste, an euphemism for any lowly contract performer who was not a star. RTV had a large roster of contract artistes and most of them would end up being nothing. I didn't know any of the artistes, and when we needed someone, it was usually for something inconsequential. So when I started calling people down the list, they would have all kinds of excuses to avoid having to show up, such as being in the hospital, getting married, or someone in the family just died; this is no joke. I got so frazzled I said, "I don't care if your father died, if you don't show up, you need never show up at the station again." This sounds harsh, but I was told that people would walk all over me if I acted too Canadian--that was of course a very different Canada in the seventies, unlike the current Justinian era when being Canadian means lying and slandering without shame. In any case, the artiste showed up; no one died. Everyone had a good laugh. Lying was normal; it was not personal. There were no hard feelings. The show must go on. It was business as usual. So we observed with interest this young man traipsing with some regularity into the producers' room, politely accosting everyone, and chatting up the variety show producers and PAs. Some producers actually didn't think much about this kind of behavior, because if all the artistes did that, the producers and PAs wouldn't be able to work. By showing up even when there was no job, the young man made sure all the producers and PAs remembered him and knew that he was dedicated. His name is Leslie Cheung. For a long time, he did not get any breakthrough jobs. But he persisted. In late summer of 1978, Commercial TV (佳视) failed. Their Wuxia master director Siu Shang, (萧笙) joined RTV taking along his protégés, one of whom was Virginia Lok (乐易玲) who would eventually become the top executive of TVB, the only major broadcaster in Hong Kong after the demise of ATV. Virginia was a hot babe then, and they sat right behind my group. Director Siu was a master of his arts; there is no question. One of my fellow PAs immediately jumped ship and joined Siu Shang. His name is Siu Hin Fai (蕭顯輝). We were good friends. He urged me to leave our group as well. I did not because I knew I was immigrating to Canada by early 1979. Siu Hin Fai gave me a parting gift of a book on Chinese Mythology. I still have that book with me. He would later follow Siu Shang to TVB and became a successful executive producer of many popular shows. I never met most of these friends again after I left Hong Kong, except for Brenda Lo (盧葉媚), well known Hong Kong musician and variety show producer at RTV, who came to Toronto and actually worked at my station for a short while (Brenda and Leslie were of course old friends), Celfen Leung (梁蘊紅), and Siu Hin Fai, my old colleague at "New Generation." Siu Hin Fai came back into my life after many years by a strange twist of fate, but that twist ended up badly for him. He passed away alone at home at the early age of fifty from a stroke. Unfortunately, the story of what happened to Siu Hin Fai cannot be told here due to privacy reasons. In my opinion, Leslie Cheung's first breakthrough was in fact starring in Siu Shang's first Wuxia series at RTV (浣花洗劍錄). You probably won't hear a lot of people say that, but Leslie was a nobody before this; suddenly, he was the star occupying top billing of a Wuxia series directed by a well-known master and aired during prime time. All of a sudden, people in Hong Kong knew who Leslie Cheung was. I know I took notice. Leslie certainly took that opportunity and kept on with his steady ascension. In my opinion, he was probably the only one among his peers during those heady days of Hong Kong filmdom to have natural star quality. Sometimes, it's lonely at the top and the fall may be harder. In the summer of 1997, I was back in Hong Kong to witness the hand-over ceremony. I was also to set up a company in Guangzhou as a subsidiary for ACE, one of the largest television and telecommunications technologies companies doing business in China. A friend Roks Lam (Hong Kong radio jockey of golden oldies) got in touch and invited me to have dinner with him. His wife at the time was a senior producer at RTHK (Gov't owned media) and they were having dinner with a famous executive producer Manfred Wong (文雋) and his actors doing their rounds to promote a new release. I was quite indifferent about Hong Kong movies and did not know that the beautiful girl sitting beside me was Shu Qi (舒淇). (Shu Qi) ... It's almost as embarrassing as not knowing I spent an entire evening talking to Chiang Kai-shek's grandson Chiang Hsiao-yen (蔣孝嚴). After dinner, the whole group went to their favorite watering hole to have drinks. Shu Qi seeing that I didn't pay her any attention, left early (just kidding; she probably wondered what's this guy doing here?). Guess who we bumped into on the street? Yes, the star of our story Leslie Cheung. He was at that time a superstar and he knew everyone in my group except little old me. He was with friends and we went our separate ways. At the end of the evening, when Manfred asked for the bill, the maître d' came over and discretely whispered that Leslie had picked up our tab. According to people there, that was typical Leslie. The next time I heard of Leslie Cheung was the bad news that shocked everyone. You'd think that someone who had succeeded as he had, with all the fame and wealth that a lot of people could only dream of, for which or for much less some people would sell their daughter or kill their brother, that he would think that there was no other way. My favorite Leslie Cheung film is Rouge (胭脂扣). I like the original song too. It was written by Leslie's mentor and music director of RTV (when I worked there) Michael Lai (黎小田). Michael was a La Salle alumnus (I'm a true blue La Sallite as I went from primary one to form seven in that school). The song is however sung by Leslie's co-star and another Hong Kong mega-singer/movie-star whose life was tragically cut short, Anita Mui (梅豔芳). She passed away from cancer only nine months after the passing of Leslie. (from Rouge) Excerpt from Vincent
"For they could not love you But still your love was true And when no hope was left in sight On that starry, starry night You took your life as lovers often do But I could have told you, Vincent This world was never meant for one As beautiful as you."
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