Shek Hwei was born Suen Wai-lai in Nanjing in 1934 to a family from Wuxian, Zhejiang, and moved to Hong Kong with her family in 1947, finishing her secondary schooling there. Fond of drama and film from childhood and gifted in singing, piano, ballet and painting, she entered the industry in 1951, making her screen debut in Three Smart Girls (1952), a Taishan production directed by Bu Wancang. That same year she joined Great Wall Movie Enterprises as a contract player, came to notice in Tao Qin's Father Marries Again (1952) and rose to fame in Honeymoon (1952) and Aren't the Kids Lovely? (1953), becoming one of Great Wall's leading stars. With Hsia Moon and Chen Si-si she was known as one of the 'Three Princesses of Great Wall'; in that trio she ranked second and was nicknamed the 'Second Princess'. In the 1960s Great Wall was the top-grossing Mandarin studio in Hong Kong, and the three actresses, together with the leading man Fu Kei, anchored its output. Over some thirty years, from 1951 to 1979, she carried more than forty films for Great Wall and its sister studio Feng Huang, best loved for lively, innocent 'girl-next-door' roles. Her Great Wall pictures include A Mother's Heart (1953), Little Dancer (1956), Magnolia (1958), Xiaoxiao Xiao (1960), Pearl Lost in the Sea (1965, opposite Bai Yan), Xiao Hulei (1966) and The House (1970); for Feng Huang she made Song of a Wife (1957), The True and False Daughter (1959), Thunderstorm (1961), The Life-and-Death Pawn (1961) and Mud Child (1976). Her last film was released in 1979. She was also assistant director on a 1961 Great Wall production. She and Fu Kei fell in love while making Magnolia, married in 1954, and became one of Great Wall's best-known screen couples. After 1980 she served as head of Great Wall's actors' unit and chairwoman of the South China Film Workers' Union, and as general manager of the Qiaofa trading department of Sil-Metropole, the body formed by the merger of Great Wall, Feng Huang and Sun Luen. In the 1980s she gave concerts in Beijing, Shanghai and Fuzhou, recorded an album and held painting exhibitions. In 1991 she and her husband emigrated to Canada, where she has long been settled. Her bright yet refined screen presence made her one of the most recognisable actresses in Hong Kong's Mandarin cinema of the 1950s and 60s.
Shek Hwei's refined, lively 'girl-next-door' persona and her place among the 'Three Princesses of Great Wall' made her one of the most bankable Mandarin-film actresses in 1950s and 60s Hong Kong. With her husband Fu Kei she anchored Great Wall's stable of stars and appeared in more than forty films, helping bring Mandarin melodrama and social drama to a mass audience. A trained soprano as well, she toured mainland China with concerts and held painting exhibitions in the 1980s, showing the versatility of a studio-era performer. After emigrating to Canada in 1991 she and Fu Kei remained emblematic of Hong Kong's golden age of leftist cinema.
Achievements
- 1951 · Entered the film industry, making her screen debut in the Taishan production Three Smart Girls (1952)
- 1952 · Joined Great Wall Movie Enterprises as a contract player and came to notice in Father Marries Again
- 1979 · Starred in her final film, released in 1979