Charlene Tse

Biography

Charlene Tse is a Hong Kong actress and television host born in Guangzhou in 1963, and is the first Miss Hong Kong to have been born in mainland China. Her ancestral home is in Mei County, Guangdong. She emigrated to Hong Kong in 1978 at the age of fifteen and attended Hong Kong True Light Middle School. Raised in a Christian family, both of her parents were vocal music teachers. She worked as a part-time piano tutor before graduating from secondary school. She entered the Miss Hong Kong pageant in 1985 at the urging of one of her mother's students and won the title, becoming the first mainland-born Miss Hong Kong winner. After her victory, she joined TVB and became one of the leading actresses in period dramas during the 1980s, starring in notable series such as "Di Qing," "Battle of the Imperial City," and "The Deadly Breaking Sword." She married artist Shum Kin-fun in 1991 and had two daughters with him, then retired from the entertainment industry to start a family and because she had grown weary of the grueling filming lifestyle. She returned to the screen in 2005 following her divorce that same year, hosting the food program "Wei Shi Jiu Bing." She also ventured into business and co-founded a handmade cookie company in 2008, becoming one of the owners of the cookie shop "Cookies Quartet," and later expanded the business to include a traditional egg roll brand. She remarried in 2010 to Wang De-wei, head of TVB's photography department.