Wu Tip-ying (1911 – 12 November 2004), born Wu Pui-wan and also known as Wu Tak-hing, came from the village of Gangtou in Shaxi, Zhongshan county, Guangdong, and was a Cantonese opera and opera performer long based in the United States who appeared in about seventeen films. Her father came of a scholarly family and had helped fund Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary work, and her mother was from Shiqi in Zhongshan; she studied in her home village, moved to Guangzhou with her parents at thirteen or fourteen and, encouraged by them, trained in opera under Liao Feilian. Her career spanned Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Chinese communities in America. In 1933 she starred with Kwan Tak-hing in San Francisco in Torrent of Love, the first Cantonese-language sound film made outside China, which proved popular with local Chinese audiences. On 30 April 1936 she joined the Sun Dip-wan (New Butterfly Soul) touring opera troupe, appearing with Kwan Tak-hing, Leung Lai-wan and Yee Chau-sui at the Ko Shing Theatre in Sheung Wan in works including Yang Guifei, The White-Boned Beauty and Peach Blossom Luck, moving between Cantonese opera and opera. On 30 May 1939 she married the UK-educated lawyer Kwan Hok-lam at the register office on Jackson Road, with Sir Robert Ho Tung attending. That year she financed her own Wu Tip-ying Film Company, whose first release, Sisters of the Southland, cast her in two roles and was billed as her farewell to the screen. In September 1952 she flew by Pan Am via Tokyo to Honolulu — the painter Zhang Daqian was on the same flight — to shoot the colour Cantonese film Beauty of Honolulu, premiered in Hong Kong on 5 April 1953, and gave charity performances of a Chinese sword dance and an English-language song for the local Outdoor Circle women's association, raising more than US$20,000; further charity shows in Bangkok followed in December 1953. Settling in the San Francisco area in the 1950s, she continued to perform Cantonese opera and to raise funds for Chinese community bodies. She died on 12 November 2004.
A long-time traveller between the United States and Hong Kong, Wu took Cantonese opera and film to Chinese communities in America and Southeast Asia, appearing in some of the earliest Cantonese sound films made outside China; her own studio and trans-Pacific charity shows record the cross-border networks of early overseas Chinese performers.
Achievements
- 1933 · Starred with Kwan Tak-hing in San Francisco's Torrent of Love, the first Cantonese sound film made outside China
- 1936 · Joined the Sun Dip-wan troupe at the Ko Shing Theatre in Sheung Wan, performing Yang Guifei and The White-Boned Beauty with Kwan Tak-hing and Leung Lai-wan
- 1939 · Founded the Wu Tip-ying Film Company, whose first release, Sisters of the Southland, cast her in two roles
- 1952 · Travelled to Honolulu to shoot the colour Cantonese film Beauty of Honolulu and raised more than US$20,000 in charity performances