STUDY IN CHINA GLOBAL (SCG)Xuan Jinglin(宣景琳 Xuān Jǐnglín) was born in 1907, called the No.1 film carline in China. Although she had a highly successful film career, Xuan Jinglin had a very bad start in life, with a sad and bitter childhood. She was born in Shanghai, the youngest of six children (five girls and one boy) of a newspaper deliveryman. The father died when she was four months old, leaving his widow and children, already poor, in desperate straits. The only income they had was what little money her uncles, the mother’s brothers, were able to give them. Jinglin received some education when a school operated by a Christian church waived the tuition for her to attend classes. But this also turned out to be a bad experience for the little girl, as her affluent classmates teased her unmercifully about her family’s poverty and her hand-me-down clothes, and she often came home in tears. When the uncles died one after another, Xuan Jinglin’s mother had no recourse but to sell her youngest daughter to a brothel, in effect sentencing her to an abysmal, and probably short, life of degradation.
Jinglin suffered this existence for some years, dreaming of escape. She thought her dream had come true when one of her clients fell for her. This young man was Wang Gongzi, scion of a wealthy shipowning family, and although he wanted to marry her, his father resolutely opposed his son marrying a prostitute. Her hopes for a normal future dashed, Jinglin returned to the brothel.
But fate suddenly gave her a second chance. In 1925, China’s national film industry was developing rapidly, and the numerous movie studios popping up in Shanghai were in urgent need of talent. Someone, perhaps a considerate client, introduced the attractive teenager to writer/director Zheng Zhengqiu(郑正秋 Zhèng Zhèngqiū), who as chance would have it was looking for someone to fill a supporting role in an upcoming film, a pretty girl, but one who could project a villainous nature. After interviewing Xuan Jinglin he cast her in the role, a one-movie deal. Although the film, “The Last Conscience” (最后之良心 zuìhòu zhī liángxīn) has been lost, we know from contemporary reviews that her character was that of a backbiting, conniving and rude sister-in-law. We also know her success was such that on Zheng Zhengqiu’s recommendation the Mingxing studio signed her to a 3-year contract. She had important roles in four more movies in 1925, and was well-received by audiences, so much so that when in 1926 the “New World” magazine of Shanghai held a reader vote for the “Empresses of Film,” Xuan Jinglin was voted one of the “Four Great Ingenues” of Chinese film, along with Zhang Zhiyun(张织云 Zhāng Zhīyún), Yang Naimei(杨耐梅 Yáng Nàiméi) and Wang Hanlun(王汉伦 Wáng Hànlún). The unwilling teenage brothel inmate had at last escaped the abyss.
In her first two years in movies, Xuan Jinglin held leading roles in more than 10 films, usually playing ingénues or young married women. But in her last film of 1926, director Zhang Shichuan(张石川 Zhāng Shíchuān) cast her as an old woman, a successful bit of creative casting which in hindsight probably made the difference between Xuan having a relatively short movie career as an ingénue and a much longer one as a character actress. In 1931, Xuan made another successful transition, moving from Mingxing to the Tianyi film studio to play the lead in a sound film, “Spring Comes on Stage” (歌场春色 gēchǎng chūnsè), a backstage romance patterned after American musicals, with musical performances interspersed between romantic and comedy scenes. It created a public sensation. (Technically, this was not a sound film as we came to know the term: the soundtrack was recorded on wax disks, with music and dialogue synchronized with the action onscreen.)
Late on the night of September 18, 1931, the Japanese army in Manchuria blew up a train, creating what came to be known as the Mukden Incident and giving their army an excuse to make further inroads into Chinese territory. To divert international attention from their incursions into Manchuria, on January 28, 1932 the Japanese army opened a second front at Shanghai. As fighting around Shanghai continued, the film industry shut down for a time, and with no work to do, Xuan organized the “Xuan Jinglin Road Company,” which traveled throughout China giving musical and classical opera performances. The following year, she resumed her movie career with Mingxing, acting the lead in more than 10 films for that studio over the next two years. Notable among these is the sound film “Twin Sisters” (姊妹花 zǐmèi huā) and its lost sequel “Sisters Rebornin” both of which she played the mother of the sisters (Hu Die in an historic dual role.) So many early Chinese films have been lost that this is believed to be the only complete Xuan Jinglin performance left to us from her early career.
Xuan Jinglin was not obsessed with stardom, but her impoverished early years understandably led to frugality: while she carefully saved her earnings from filmmaking for eventual retirement, and made regular repayment on the debts she owed the brothel owners dating back to her days as a prostitute, there was still a large balance outstanding. Somehow, her debtors found out about her secret retirement fund, and had the legal power to confiscate not only her savings, but her entire estate as well. But when Zheng Zhengqiu learned of this, he dipped into the Mingxing studio’s funds to buy back her freedom, and moreover wrote the screenplay for a film, “Shanghai Woman” (上海一妇人 shànghǎi yī fùrén), about the life of a former prostitute, and asked Xuan Jinglin to act the title role. She accepted, and drawing on her personal experience gave a performance which wowed audiences, and reaffirmed that Xuan Jinglin was a major movie star.
Xuan Jinglin died on January 22, 1992, at the age of 85.
