Cecilia Cheung

Biography

Cheung was born in Man Wah Sun Chuen, Jordan, Hong Kong. Her parents divorced when she was nine years old. She was sent to Melbourne, Australia to live with her aunt at the age of fourteen and then attended Camberwell Girls Grammar School. She has an elder half-sister, two younger brothers and a younger half-brother from her father's side.

Career

Her career began in 1998, when she was cast in a television commercial advertising lemon tea. She caught the attention of Stephen Chow after shooting the ad. Later, Cheung made her film debut as a young nightclub hostess in Stephen Chow's King of Comedy (1999). King of Comedy became the highest grossing local film of the year, and shot Cheung to fame in Hong Kong. She then starred in Fly Me to Polaris (1999), which earned her the award for Best Newcomer at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Cheung also sung the theme song for Fly Me to Polaris, which gained attention among the masses for her singing ability. In the same year, Cheung launched her singing career with her first Cantopop album Any Weather (1999).

Cheung made inroads into the Korean market with Failan (2001) co-starring Choi Min-shik. The film earned her a nomination at the Grand Bell Awards for Best Actress. She then starred in the Chinese comedy film The Lion Roars (2002). Cheung impressed the audiences with her portrayal of the independent and spunky heroine, and won the Most Popular Actress award at the Chinese Film Media Awards.

For Derek Yee's romantic drama Lost in Time (2003), Cheung won the award for Best Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards. She played a young woman who lost her fiancé to a traffic accident, which left her as a grieving single mother struggling to make ends meet. Cheung earned praises for successfully expressing a string of emotional transformations. Cheung also won the Best Actress award at the Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award for her performance in Running on Karma (2003).

Cheung reunited with Derek Yee in the crime thriller One Nite in Mongkok (2004) where she played a prostitute who cross paths with an assassin (played by Daniel Wu). She was nominated for the Best Actress award at the Hong Kong Film Awards for the third time. She then starred alongside Jang Dong-gun in the romance epic The Promise (2005), a $30 million pan-Asian production directed by Chen Kaige which was chosen to represent China in the Academy Awards.

Cheung was cast in her first television project, where she played the legendary singer Zhou Xuan in The Wandering Songstress (2008). She was reportedly paid 200,000 yuan per episode to film the drama.

After a 5-year hiatus from acting, Cheung made her comeback in the comedy film All's Well, Ends Well 2011. However, Cheung's next few films failed to achieve commercial success and were critically panned. She received the "Most Disappointing Actress" award at the Golden Broom Awards for her performance in Legendary Amazons and Treasure Hunt.

Cheung has earned 70 million HKD in 2014, ranking number nine in the top ten list of Hong Kong's highest (entertainment) celebrity incomes in 2014.

Personal life

Cheung married fellow Hong Kong entertainer Nicholas Tse in a secret wedding ceremony in the Philippines in September 2006. She gave birth to their first son in August 2007 and their second son in May 2010.

On 23 August 2011, the couple made a public announcement of an agreement to a divorce. They agreed to hold joint custody of their two sons.

1999 Triad threat incident

In 1999, her triad member father got into a misunderstanding with a rival gang. As a result, Cheung received rape and death threats against her, when she was still relatively new in the film industry.

2008 Edison Chen Photo scandal

In January and February 2008, many explicit photos were found online involving Cheung and Edison Chen. The scandal also involved Gillian Chung and Bobo Chan.