Maggie Cheung facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Maggie Cheung
張曼玉
Cheung in 2007
Born	Cheung Man-yuk Margaret (1964-09-20) 20 September 1964 (age 60) British Hong Kong
Alma mater	St. Paul's Primary Catholic School, Happy Valley St Edmund's School, Canterbury University of Edinburgh (Honorary Ph.D)
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1984–2004 2009–2013
Spouse(s)	Olivier Assayas ​ ​ (m. 1998; div. 2001)​
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	張曼玉
Simplified Chinese	张曼玉
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Zhāng Mànyù Wu Shanghainese Romanization Tsan Mae-nyoh Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Zoeng1 Maan6 Juk2

Maggie Cheung Man-yuk (born 20 September 1964) is a famous actress from Hong Kong. She grew up in Hong Kong and Britain. Maggie started her acting career after coming in second place in the 1983 Miss Hong Kong Pageant.

She became very successful in movies from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. After her last main role in 2004, she took a break from acting. Now, she mostly appears at fashion shows and awards.

Maggie has won many awards for her acting, both in Hong Kong and around the world. She won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress 5 times. This is a record for the most wins in that category. She also holds the record for most wins of the Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actress in Taiwan, winning 4 times.

In other countries, she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1992. She also won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. In 2004, she was the first Asian actress to be nominated for the French César Award for Best Actress.

Some of her most famous movies include As Tears Go By, Center Stage, Comrades: Almost a Love Story, Hero, and Clean. Her movie In the Mood for Love (2000), directed by Wong Kar-wai, is a classic film. In this movie, she wears beautiful cheongsam dresses.

Early Life and Education

Maggie Cheung was born in Hong Kong on 20 September 1964. Her parents were from Shanghai. She went to St. Paul's Primary Catholic School in Happy Valley.

When she was eight, her family moved from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom. She spent part of her childhood and teenage years in Bromley, London, England. In 1982, at age 18, she returned to Hong Kong for a holiday. She ended up staying for modeling jobs. She also worked briefly as a salesperson at a department store.

In 1983, Maggie entered the Miss Hong Kong pageant. She won second place and the Miss Photogenic award. She also reached the semi-finals in the Miss World pageant that same year. After working as a TV presenter for two years, she signed a contract with TVB, a television company.

Maggie can speak many languages. She learned them from growing up in Hong Kong and England, and from living in Paris for ten years. In the movie Center Stage, she spoke Cantonese, Mandarin, and Shanghainese easily. In Clean, she spoke English, French, and Cantonese very well.

Maggie Cheung's Acting Career

Soon after her start, Maggie began acting in movies, often in comedies. She caught the eye of famous actor Jackie Chan. He cast her in his movie Police Story (1985). She played May, his girlfriend. This movie was a huge hit and made Maggie a star right away.

At first, Maggie often played funny or weak characters. She wanted to try more serious roles. She got this chance when director Wong Kar-wai cast her in As Tears Go By (1988). This was the first of many times she worked with Wong. Maggie often says this movie helped her start her serious acting career. She received great reviews for it.

In 1989, she won Best Actress awards for her roles in Full Moon in New York and A Fishy Story. In 1991, she became the first Chinese actress to win a Best Actress Award at the important Berlin Film Festival for her work in Center Stage.

Maggie then showed she could play many different types of roles, even in action films. Her acting in the sci-fi martial arts movie The Heroic Trio (1992) and its sequel, Executioners (1993), impressed people with her martial arts skills. She also played a beautiful but dangerous woman in New Dragon Gate Inn (1992).

After a break in 1994, Maggie returned to film Irma Vep (1996). This movie helped her become known internationally. That same year, she was praised for her role in the romantic film Comrades: Almost a Love Story. In this movie, she played one of two lovers kept apart for ten years. The next year, she made her first English-language film, Chinese Box (1997).

After marrying French director Olivier Assayas in 1998, Maggie mostly stayed in France. She came back to Hong Kong to film In the Mood for Love (2000). This movie was highly praised and won Maggie another Golden Horse award. After that, she starred in Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002) and Wong Kar-wai's 2046 (2004). She won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Clean (2004).

Cheung at the 2007 Shanghai International Film Festival

Maggie was a judge at several film festivals, including the 1997 Berlin Film Festival and the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. In 2006, the Cannes Film Festival used a picture of Maggie Cheung on its poster for the first time ever.

In 2007, The New York Times named Maggie one of the 22 Great Performers of 2006. This was for her award-winning role as Emily in Clean. After 25 years of acting, she decided to stop making movies. She wanted to try composing music instead. She had said she wanted to compose music and paint after reaching her full potential as an actress. Her last film role was as Mazu, a Chinese goddess, in Ten Thousand Waves (2010).

Since 2004, Maggie has focused on helping others, making music, and editing films. In April 2010, she became a UNICEF Ambassador for China. In July 2011, she received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Edinburgh. Maggie officially retired from acting in 2013 and has kept a quiet life since then.

Life After Acting

In May 2014, Maggie Cheung performed at the Shanghai Strawberry Music Festival. In June 2019, she appeared on a TV show called Master In The House. She talked about how her 2014 performance was not well-received.

In 2015, Maggie wrote and sang the theme song "If You Were Gone" for the movie Cities in Love. She spent almost half a year working on the song.

In June 2022, Maggie performed a DJ set at the opening of a new Gucci store in Hong Kong.

Personal Life

Maggie Cheung married French director Olivier Assayas in 1998. They divorced in 2001. She started a relationship with German architect Ole Scheeren in 2007, but they broke up in 2011.

In 2020, a Singaporean newspaper reported that Maggie had no plans to return to acting. She prefers to spend her time on fashion, music, and working on films behind the scenes.

Awards and Recognition

Maggie Cheung has won many awards throughout her career. Here are some of her most important wins:

Major Wins

Images for kids

• Maggie Cheung.jpg

  Cheung in 2007

See also

• Cinema of Hong Kong