Ms Bai Guang

1921-1999

Actress & Singer

Singer-actress Shi Yongfen’s stage name, Bai Guang, refers to the beam of white light from a film projector. She studied music at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University in Japan from 1938 and played the leading role in the film East Asia, Road to Peace (1938). Upon return to Shanghai in 1943, she made a name for herself appearing in It’s Always Spring (1943). In the films that followed, such as House Number 13 (1947), Missing Document (1948) and She Married Three Times (1948), she sealed her position as the femme fatale of Chinese cinema. In 1949, Bai came to Hong Kong, where she appeared in A Forgotten Woman (1949), Blood Will Tell (1949) and A Strange Woman (1950). She also founded Guoguang Film Company to direct and star in Fresh Peony (1956). Dubbed “the Seductress of a Generation”, Bai was brilliant as the dangerous but irresistible woman. Her nonchalant and sensual voice was immortalised in movie soundtracks and pop songs. A Forgotten Woman contains a number of hits: “Sigh Ten Times”, “A Patch of Green on the East Mountain”, “Waiting for You”, and “If You were Not Here”. In 1959, Bai Guang retired and moved to Malaysia.