司馬音

简介

Sima Yin was born in Beijing in 1925 with the original name Chen Ming. She was later adopted by relatives of the Sima family and renamed Sima Xiao Ming, before finally changing her name to Sima Yin on the advice of a Shanghai friend who recognized her musical talent. She moved to Shanghai during primary school and later went to Japan to study vocal music at a Japanese university, receiving soprano training. After returning to Shanghai she worked as a singer until the outbreak of the war in 1937, when she fled to Kunming in Yunnan, and eventually relocated to British Hong Kong after the war. In Hong Kong she lost her former fame and worked as a dance hall escort. She entered the 1948 Miss Hong Kong pageant under the name "Ding Bo Er" and won first place. Despite controversy over alleged vote-rigging, her victory led to a film contract, ending her dancing career and allowing her to return to singing and acting, with her first film released in 1949. Her daughter Guo Youhua was influenced by her career and became a child actress in the mid-1960s under the stage name "Niu Niu."