Lydia Shum Din-ha (1945–2008), affectionately known as Fei-fei, was born in Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong with her family in 1958. She made her screen debut as a child actress in 1960 in When the Peach Blossoms Bloom, and then joined the newly founded Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB), becoming one of its earliest contract artists. After TVB began broadcasting in 1967 she was a long-time host of Enjoy Yourself Tonight, Hong Kong's longest-running variety show, winning the public over with her warm, quick-witted style and witnessing the golden age of local television; she also formed the singing quartet Four Golden Flowers with Liza Wang, Wong Oi-ming and Teresa Cheung, recording songs such as It's a Small World. From her Shaw Brothers child-actress days she worked steadily in Mandarin and Cantonese pictures through the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in comedic roles, and as a host of Enjoy Yourself Tonight she appeared live several nights a week, playing comic sketches with guests and becoming a ratings draw. She appeared in more than a hundred films, and in the late 1980s her It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World comedies were box-office hits: the 1987 first instalment, directed by Clifton Ko, cast her as the thrifty Aunty Piu opposite Bill Tung and took over HK$27 million at Chinese New Year, with two sequels following in the next two years to become a beloved seasonal series. Nimble despite her round figure, she performed ballet steps and the splits in a 1981 TVB spectacular. Married to actor Adam Cheng, she raised their daughter Joyce Cheng alone after their divorce, and Joyce later became a singer and actress herself. After repeated hospital stays for health problems from 2006, she still attended the TVB anniversary gala the following year to collect her award. She received TVB's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007 and died of liver cancer at Queen Mary Hospital on 19 February 2008, aged 62; in April that year the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards honoured her posthumously with a Professional Spirit Award, accepted by her daughter.
For decades Lydia Shum hosted Enjoy Yourself Tonight with a warm, quick-witted screen persona, making her an emblem of Hong Kong television's golden age; her trademark laugh, bouffant hair and round figure became her signature, and her story with her daughter Joyce Cheng entered the collective memory of local popular culture.
Achievements
- 1960 · Made her screen debut as a child actress in 1960.
- 1987 · Starred opposite Bill Tung in the Lunar New Year comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World, which took over HK$27 million at the box office.
- 2007 · Received TVB's Lifetime Achievement Award.
- 2008 · Posthumously received the Professional Spirit Award at the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards.