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| Birth Name(s) : Chong Chen |
Date of Birth: April 26, 1961 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
Peter Hui |
| Profession:
Actor |
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Full Joan Chen Biography
Born into a family of doctors. Educated in China at the Shanghai Film Academy and the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Languages. Discovered by veteran Chinese director Xie Jin while observing a filming with a school group. Her performance in "Little Flower" won China's Best Actress award, and resulted in the Chinese press dubbing her "The Elizabeth Taylor of China" for having achieved top stardom while still a teenager.
She came to the US to attend college in 1981, first at the State University of New York at New Paltz, later at California State University at Northridge. Had a succession of small parts in movies and TV, with first break coming in 1986 when, in the true tradition of Hollywood legend, Dino DiLaurentis discovered her in the Lorimar parking lot and cast her in "Tai-pan". The film bombed, but led to Chen being cast as the ill-fated Empress in Bertollucci's "The Last Emperor", which won critical acclaim. This, and her role as enigmatic mill owner Josie Packard in the cult TV series "Twin Peaks", are her best-known roles in the West. However, Hollywood's practice of type-casting Asians has led to a dearth of major roles for Chen since then, and in recent roles, she has often been cast as a villainess. |
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Additional Joan Chen Biography
Joan Chen Chong (traditional Chinese: 陳冲; simplified Chinese: 陈冲; Mandarin Pinyin: Chén Chōng; Cantonese: 陳沖/Chan Chung; Cantonese IPA: ; Jyutping: can4 cung1; Yale: chan4 chung1) (born April 26, 1961) is a Chinese American actress, film director, screenwriter and film producer, best known for her roles in The Last Emperor, Twin Peaks, Red Rose, White Rose, Saving Face, and for directing the feature film Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl.
She was born Chen Chong in Shanghai, China into a family of doctors (her grandparents were educated at Oxford and her parents were trained at Harvard). She grew up during the Cultural Revolution. At age 14, Chen was discovered on the school rifle range by Mao Zedong's wife Jiang Qing, as she was excelling at marksmanship. This led her to be selected for the Actors' Training Program by the Shanghai Film Studio in 1975, where she was discovered by veteran director Xie Jin who chose her to star in his 1977 film Youth ('春, Qīngchūn) as a deaf mute whose senses are restored by an Army medical team. She soon enrolled in the prestigious Shanghai Institute of Foreign Languages, at age 17 (one year before one could go), where she majored in English.
Chen Chong first became famous in China for her performance in Zhang Zheng's Little Flower (小花) in 1979 for which she won the Hundred Flowers Award (百花), in which she played a revolutionary's daughter in pre-Maoist China, who falls in love with the wounded soldier whom she and her mother care for. Little Flower was her second film and Chen soon hit the status of China's most loved actress, which earned her to be dubbed "the Elizabeth Taylor of China" by Time magazine, for having achieved stardom while still a teenager. In addition, Chen is famous in China for her role in the 1979 film Hearts for the Motherland (海外赤子) (aka Overseas Compatriots or A Loyal Overseas Chinese Family), which depicts an overseas Chinese family that returns to China from southeast Asia out of their patriotic feelings but encounter political troubles during the Cultural Revolution. The songs, I Love You, China (我爱你中国) and High Flies the Petrel （高飞的海燕）, sung by Chen's character, are perennial favorites in China.
At age twenty, Chen moved to the United States where she studied filmmaking at California State University, Northridge. In 1989, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Her first Hollywood movie was Tai-Pan, filmed on location in China. She went on to star in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor in 1987 and the David Lynch/Mark Frost television series Twin Peaks. In 1993 she co-starred in Oliver Stone's Heaven & Earth. She portrayed two different characters in Clara Law's Temptation of a Monk (誘僧, Yòu Sēng): a seductive princess of Tang dynasty, and a dangerous temptress. The award-winning film was adapted from a novel by Lilian Lee. In 1994 she came back in Shanghai to star in critically acclaimed Stanley Kwan's Red Rose, White Rose (紅玫瑰白玫瑰) opposite Winston Chao and Veronica Yip. In 1995, Chen made what has become perhaps her best known film; "Wild Side" for HBO. The movie has become something of a cult classic due mainly to her graphic lesbian love scenes with co-star Anne Heche. Tired of being cast as an exotic beauty in Hollywood films, Chen moved into directing in 1998 with the critically acclaimed Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl (Chinese: 天浴; pinyin: Tiān Yù), adapted from the novella Heavenly Bath (天浴) by her friend Yan Geling. She later directed Autumn in New York in 2000.
Chen made a comeback in 2004 when she starred in Jasmine Women (茉莉花开) and in Asian American independent film Saving Face. She then appeared in the Asian American independent film Americanese.
Chen will appear in 7 films whose release is scheduled for 2007 and 2008: Singapore film The Leap Years (based upon a novel by Catherine Lim and starring Wong Li-Lin, Ananda Everingham and Qi Yuwu), Australian film The Home Song Stories (directed by Tony Ayres, again co-starring Qi Yuwu), American films Michael Almereyda's Tonight at Noon (along with Ethan Hawke and Rutger Hauer) and All God's Children Can Dance (opposite Tzi Ma), Chinese film Jiang Wen's The Sun Also Rises (opposite Jaycee Chan and Anthony Wong Chau-Sang), and Chinese American film Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (along with Tony Leung Chiu-Wai).
Chen married her second husband, cardiologist Peter Hui, on January 18, 1992. She was formerly married to actor Jimmy Lau from 1985 to 1990. Joan and her current husband have 2 daughters and live in San Francisco, but spend part of every year in Shanghai, China with Joan's family, so their daughters can be familiar with Chinese culture. |
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| There are only so many roles as empresses...but I've had a lot of offers to play vampires. |
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