Shek Ling, born Yiu Kwan-yee, was a native of Chao'an in Guangdong who was born in Guangzhou and raised in Hong Kong, attending Kowloon True Light Middle School and graduating from the Northcote Training College. In 1963, as the Tung Shan Film Company's two principal actresses Ting Chor-kiu and Fong Hau-yuk successively faded out, she joined the studio on the recommendation of a fellow townsman. Tung Shan's Chaozhou operatic art association, formed in 1959, had begun moving into film production, and Shek Ling, good-looking and mild in temperament, became its principal actress in its later years, playing opposite the female xiaosheng Chong Suet-kuen, with Yeung Fan as the studio's only director. In three years she appeared in eight period Teochew opera films, including The Butterfly Lovers (1963), The Story of Pipa (1963), Meng Lijun (1963), The West Chamber (1964) and The Double Jade Fish (1964). Because her period looks and bearing recalled the Cantonese opera star Pak Suet-sin, she was nicknamed the 'Teochew Pak Suet-sin'. Some 160 Chaozhou-dialect films were made in Hong Kong in the 1960s, aimed mainly at Teochew communities in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, and as these films circulated she built an audience there; in 1964 she played more than thirty stage dates in Thailand. When the cycle declined, the studio's Tsang Mo-hei formed Tin Ma to make Cantonese films, keeping Shek and Chong as its contract players. Her first Tin Ma picture was Double Wedding (1965), and later Cantonese films included two directed by Chu Kei. In her final years she worked with Southeast Asia Film and co-produced The Mad Dragon (1969) with Chong.
A leading actress of the later Teochew-dialect cycle, Shek was nicknamed the 'Teochew Pak Suet-sin' for period roles that recalled the Cantonese opera star. Partnering the female xiaosheng Chong Suet-kuen, she toured Southeast Asia and Thailand with her films and became a representative performer of the transition from Teochew-dialect to Cantonese pictures.
Achievements
- 1963 · Joined Tung Shan Film Company and became its principal actress in its later years
- 1964 · Played more than thirty stage dates in Thailand
- 1969 · Co-produced The Mad Dragon with Chong Suet-kuen