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| Birth Name(s) : Ming-Na Wen |
Date of Birth: November 20, 1963 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
Eric Michael Zee |
| Profession:
Actor |
Official Site
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Full Ming-Na Biography
Ming-Na (translated her name means "enlightenment") was born on the island of Macau, a Portuguese territory located 40 miles from Hong Kong that was returned to China last year. Her mother Lin Chan Wen divorced her father when Ming-Na was only a toddler. She has an older brother named Jonathan. After the divorce, they moved to Hong Kong where her mother became a nurse. There her mother met Soo Lim Yee, a Chinese-American businessman. They soon married and at age 4, Ming-Na moved with her family to Queens, New York. Five years later, they transferred to Yee's hometown of Pittsburgh where his family runs the Chinatown Inn restaurant. Jonathan and half-brother, Leong, now manage this restaurant. Struggling to fit in at school, she changed her name to Maggie & Doris.
She found a love for acting while appearing in a third grade Easter play, where she played a "klutzy" bunny. Her mother was not excited about her desire to pursue acting, She preferred that she go into medicine. Nonetheless, Ming-Na graduated from Carnegie Mellon University with a degree in theater. She got her first acting job in 1988 on the soap "As The World Turns". Her big break came when she was cast in "The Joy Luck Club" (1993). When she needed a ride to the premiere of the film, her acting instructor sent one of his students, Eric Michael Zee. The two started dating in 1994 after Ming-Na moved permanently to LA and married in 1995. Ming-Na dropped her last name, Wen, at that time. She says she is now like Ann-Margret. Zee is a screenwriter and with Ming-Na, manages At Last, an Asian boy band. |
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Additional Ming-Na Biography
Ming-Na was born on Coloane Island, Macau to Chinese parents and moved to the United States as a young girl with her mother; her parents divorced when she was a toddler. She attended high school in the Pittsburgh suburb of Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drama from Carnegie Mellon University, the same university that ER producer John Wells attended.
She married American film writer Kirk Aanes in 1990, but divorced in 1993 without children. She got married for the second time on June 16, 1995, with Erich Michael Zee, and has since then had two children. They currently live in Calabasas, California.
Her most prominent role may be as Dr. Jing-Mei "Deb" Chen on the NBC drama series ER. Ming-Na appeared in the movie version of Amy Tan's novel The Joy Luck Club and played Chun-Li in Street Fighter. She also appeared in a supporting role on the comedy series The Single Guy which starred Jonathan Silverman.
Ming-Na also provided the voice for the title character in Disney's animated movie Mulan, and its sequel Mulan II, as well as reprising her role in the Square Enix/Disney videogame Kingdom Hearts II, Aki Ross in the computer animated film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and Detective Ellen Yin in the animated series The Batman. She was also the voice actress for Jade, a minor character in the HBO animated series Spawn.
In fall 2005, she starred on the NBC drama series Inconceivable as the lead character, Rachel Lu. However, the series was cancelled after only a few episodes. Her next TV role was an FBI agent in the FOX kidnap drama series Vanished, which premiered in the fall of 2006 then was cancelled roughly 3 months later.
On October 8 through October 22, 2007, Ming-Na appeared in a three episode arc of CBS' Two and a Half Men playing a divorced, 40-year-old judge and mother who is a love interest the show's main character, played by Charlie Sheen. |
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