Zhang Zhiyun

Zhang Zhiyun was a Chinese actress. Born in Panyu County, Guangdong, she moved to Shanghai in her youth. Hired by the Greater China Film Company through a general casting call, she later transferred to Mingxing, with whom she made the commercially successful Lonely Orchid and was crowned "movie queen" in a newspaper poll. She left the film industry after beginning a relationship with, and when they severed ties she was unable to regain her stardom despite making several films. Zhang moved to British Hong Kong in her later years.

Biography

Early life

Zhang was born Zhang Ashan in Panyu County, Guangdong in 1904 or 1905. She was orphaned at a young age and lived with an adoptive mother. She moved to Shanghai in her youth, where she completed several years of schooling. However, due to a lack of funds she dropped out in her junior secondary years.

Film career

In 1923, Zhang responded to an advertisement from the seeking interested women to act in its films. More than ten thousand women submitted their photograph. Initially, Zhang's portrait was not included in the pictures reviewed by Greater China. It was later found that ten photographs, including Zhang's, had been taken by a journalist with the Shanghai-based newspaper Shen Baowhose mailbox the company had used after he deemed them the most beautiful. Zhang was selected from these recovered pictures for the company's upcoming productions, and the theft of her portrait was used to generate hype. Zhang spent two years with Greater China, completing such films as The Human Heart and Valour in War.
Zhang signed with the Mingxing Film Company in 1925, making her first appearance in A Sincerely Pitiful Girl. Over the next three years she made seven films for the company, including Lonely Orchid, in which she portrayed the dual role of a lovelorn young woman and the servant whose death is mistaken for hers. The film was one of the most successful Chinese films of the silent era, pulling in a reported 132,300 yuan in Shanghai alone. Between August and September 1926, Shen Bao held a reader's choice award for favourite actress; Zhang won the poll, receiving 2,146 ballots and being crowned the newspaper's "movie queen".
After completing Fallen Plum Blossoms for Mingxing, Zhang left the company for its rival Minxin. For her role in Pure as Ice, she gained audience recognition as a tragedy performer, with the magazine Movie Life comparing her to Lillian Gish.

Later life and career

In the mid-1920s, Zhang moved in with Bu Wancang, a cinematographer and director. As Zhang became more famous, the two began to fight, and Zhangunder pressure from her adoptive mother to find a wealthier manleft him by 1927. She later began dating, a tea merchant, leaving the film industry to spend time with him in the United States. However, the couple separated after Tang began romancing fellow actress Ruan Lingyu. An agreement that Tang would provide her with financial support in case of a separation went unhonoured.
Zhang was asked by Zhang Shichuan to return to Mingxing for Lovelorn in 1933. Intended to tell her life's story, the sound film suffered because of Zhang's poor command of Mandarinthe language of dialogueand was received negatively. She appeared in several further films, including 1935's Fan of Peach Blossoms and 1937's Cantonese-language Proud Daughter of Heaven. She spent time in Hankou, toured Southeast Asia, and lived briefly in Tianjin and Beijing. She ultimately settled in British Hong Kong in the 1950s with her husband Zhang Shuping.
Zhang made her final film appearance, a cameo as a beauty pageant panellist alongside Yang Naimei and Wu Suxin, in 1953's Heavenly Beauty. She died in Hong Kong on 2 November 1963, though some articles have incorrectly reported her as having died homeless in the mid-1970s after spending the last decade of her life living on the streets under her childhood name. She has received less coverage than contemporary actresses such as Ruan Lingyu and Hu Die.

Filmography

Indicates film is extant

English title	Traditional Chinese	Simplified Chinese	Release

Valour in War
			1925
			1926
Lonely Orchid			1926
Fiancée			1926
Love and Gold			1926
Sacrifice for the Family			1927
Fallen Plum Blossoms			1927
Pure as Ice
Lovelorn			1933
Fan of Peach Blossoms			1935
Proud Daughter of Heaven			1937
Heavenly Beauty			1953