Leslie Cheung

Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing (born Cheung Fat-chung; 12 September 1956 – 1 April 2003) was a Hong Kong singer and actor. One of the most influential cultural icons in the Sinophone world, Cheung was known for his debonair demeanor, flamboyant screen characters, and avant-garde, androgynous stage presence. Throughout his 26-year career, he released over 40 music albums and acted in 56 films.

Born in Kowloon, British Hong Kong, Cheung studied in England from the age of 12 until he returned home in 1976. He garnered attention in 1977 when entering RTV's Asian Singing Contest and achieved popularity in 1984 with a hit single "Monica." Cheung is regarded as one of the founding fathers of Cantopop for defining the music genre in the 1980s. He announced his "retirement" from music in 1989 and emigrated to Canada the following year, but he returned to Hong Kong in 1994. His reemergence from the musical retirement in the late 1990s, particularly in his 1996 album Red, was marked by sonic experimentation and daring imagery.

In addition to music, Cheung achieved pan-Asian fame with such films as A Better Tomorrow (1986) and A Chinese Ghost Story (1987). He won the Best Actor at the 1991 Hong Kong Film Awards for his role in Days of Being Wild (1990), and became world-renowned for his performances in Farewell My Concubine (1993) and Happy Together (1997). On 1 April 2003, Cheung committed suicide by jumping off the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Hong Kong.

One of the best-selling artists in Hong Kong history, three of his albums—Monica (1984) Summer Romance (1987), and Most Beloved (1995)—are ranked within the top-ten best-selling albums of all time in the territory. In 2000, Cheung was selected as one of the Top 100 Foreign Actors of the 20th Century by Kinema Junpo. In 2005, he was named one of the 100 Outstanding Actors in the Past 100 Years by the Chinese Film Performance Art Society.