Maggie Cheung Man-yuk

Biography

Maggie Cheung Man-yuk was born on 20 September 1964 in Hong Kong and grew up in the Happy Valley area before her family moved to Kent, England when she was eight. She spent her childhood and adolescence in England, where she dreamed of becoming a hairdresser and worked in a London bookshop at age sixteen. She returned to Hong Kong in 1982 to visit relatives, working as a department store saleswoman and part-time model when she was discovered by talent scout Nansun Shi during the 1983 Miss Hong Kong pageant. She competed under the name Margaret Cheung and won first runner-up and Miss Photogenic. Her film career took off in 1984 through the Police Story series with Jackie Chan, and she quickly expanded her range from commercial comedies to dramas. In 1992, she achieved a historic milestone with the film Centre Stage, becoming the first Chinese actress to win a performance award at one of the three major European film festivals and the first Chinese actress to win Best Actress at the Berlin International Film Festival. She won five Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Actress and four Golden Horse Awards, holding the record for wins in both competitions. In 2004, she won Best Actress at the Cannes International Film Festival for Clean, becoming the first and only Asian actress to win performance awards at two of the three major European film festivals. She retired from acting after 2004 and served as a UNICEF ambassador for China. She served as a jury member at the Berlin, Venice, and Cannes International Film Festivals, and was named one of the 22 greatest performers by The New York Times in 2006, receiving numerous international honours for her contributions to cinema.