Chen Yumei was a Chinese film actress and singer active during the 1920s and 1930s. In her heyday she was one of the biggest stars in China, crowned "Movie Queen" in 1934. At the peak of her career she married Runje Shaw, the boss of Tianyi Film Company, and retired from acting. She was nicknamed the "frugal star" for her efforts at promoting the virtue of frugality.
Career
Chen Yumei was born in the town of Menghe in Changzhou, Jiangsu province in 1910. Her name at birth was Fei Mengmin. Chen made her film debut at age 13, playing a minor role in the film Song Bai Yuan made by the film division of the Commercial Press in Shanghai. At age 15 she enrolled at the actresstraining school of the Laughter Stage, a theatre run by Runje Shaw, her future husband. In 1926 she joined Tianyi, the film studio recently founded by Shaw, and was selected by Shaw to play the starring role of Qiu Xiang in the film The Flirting Scholar. The film was not a great success, and Chen remained a secondary star of Tianyi after Hu Die and Wu Suxin. In 1928 Tianyi's star actress Hu Die defected to the Mingxing Film Company, Tianyi's main rival, and Chen Yumei replaced her as Tianyi's number one actress. She starred in more than 30 movies made by Tianyi, most notably A Girl Named Yunlan, Livelihood, and The Struggle. Many of her roles were of a tragic nature. During an interview, she named Livelihood, a progressive movie banned by the Shanghai Municipal Council, as one of her favourite films. She sang many of the theme songs in her movies, several of which topped the charts, and she released a record by Pathé Records. Chen Yumei was known for extolling the virtue of frugality and was nicknamed the "frugal star". She frequently appeared in public wearing a cheongsam made of plain cloth, and was once seen smoking a very cheap brand of cigarettes at a high-profile party.
Awards
In 1933, Chen Dieyi, publisher of the newspaper Star Daily, organized China's first public poll for the most popular movie stars. Fans across the country, as well as some from Japan, participated in the poll, and the results were unveiled in a public ceremony on 28 February. Chen Yumei's former colleague Hu Die was the runaway winner, and was crowned the "Movie Queen" with 21,334 votes. Chen Yumei was the first runner-up with 10,028 votes, ahead of Lianhua's star Ruan Lingyu, who was the second runner-up with 7,290 votes. In 1934, the newspaper Movie Life organized the second poll for the "Movie Queen", and Chen Yumei won the title with 30,232 votes. However, it was alleged that Tianyi's boss Runje Shaw bought numerous copies of the newspaper and cast multiple votes to help her win.
Marriage and retirement
Soon after she won the "Movie Queen" title, Chen Yumei married her boss Runje Shaw in 1934 and retired from acting. In the same year Tianyi expanded to Hong Kong and built a studio in Kowloon. Shaw went to Hong Kong to supervise the company's operations, and Chen accompanied him there. After the Second Sino-Japanese War destroyed Tianyi's business in Shanghai and the subsequent Communist victory in China, Shaw retired from film-making and later died in Shanghai in 1975. Chen kept a low profile and reportedly died in 1985.
