Lee Tim-sing (born 1948), known to the trade as 'Tim Gor', is a Hong Kong television producer and actor. He grew up in Chai Wan, in the Valley Road squatter area in Hung Hom, in a temporary housing area in San Po Kong and in the Wang Tau Hom resettlement estate, the son of a Kowloon Hospital cook and of a mother from the Tang clan of Yuen Long; he took to broadcasting as a boy listening to Rediffusion and studied classical Chinese from Primary Three. In 1967 he joined Television Broadcasts, starting in the props and scenery department before moving through floor management to assistant directing, and he made a cameo as a street sweeper in Enjoy Yourself Tonight. His first series as producer was the eighty-episode The Rainbow, followed by long-running contemporary dramas such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1979), with further serials in 1980 and 1981. From the 1990s he adapted Jin Yong, producing The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, The Return of the Condor Heroes (1995), The Duke of Mount Deer, Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils and The Book and the Sword. In the 2000s he specialised in period and Republican-era drama, with titles including a 2004 historical epic, a 2006 martial-arts serial and the Rosy Business series (2009). He produced close to sixty series in all, bringing forward actors of different generations from Chow Yun-fat to Tony Leung; he planned to retire when his contract ended in 2012 but was persuaded to stay on a one-series-a-year basis until 2016, and in 2009 received a lifetime achievement award from the television station.
Moving from acting into production, Lee Tim-sing built a Television Broadcasts output centred on long contemporary serials and Jin Yong adaptations; he brought forward actors of successive generations from Chow Yun-fat to Tony Leung and Wayne Lai, and made Rosy Business a ratings landmark in 2009.
Achievements
- 1979 · Produced the eighty-episode drama The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, starring Chow Yun-fat and Carol Cheng.
- 1984 · Produced a Television Broadcasts adaptation of Jin Yong's The Duke of Mount Deer.
- 2009 · Produced Rosy Business, starring Wayne Lai and Sheren Tang, which became a ratings talking point.