Baihong

essential information

Acting experience

make first appearance

Bai Hong, formerly known as Bai Lizhu, was born on the fifth day of the first month of the year of the monkey (February 24, 1920). He is a descendant of the royal family of the Qing Dynasty (zhenghuang banner). He grew up in Beijing. In early 1931, Li Jinhui's Shanghai Mingyue song and dance troupe enrolled students in Beijing. Although born in a family with strong feudal consciousness, her father did not obstruct her daughter, and her mother actively supported her daughter in her singing and dancing career. At that time, 12-year-old Bai Lizhu was good at singing and dancing. She was white and lovely. She was accepted by examiners Li Jinguang and Yan Zhexi on the spot, and then transferred to Qingdao with Yan Hua, Ying Yin and other newly recruited members. There, Bai Lizhu became her "virgin" and went to Shanghai to study song and dance, thus officially starting her acting career.

After entering the moon club, Bai Hong learned music theory from Li Jinguang, vocal music from composer Zhang Hao, and dance from Russian teacher masov. Meanwhile, President Li Jinhui tried to give her a chance to perform. She has appeared in three butterflies, moonlit night, poor autumn fragrance, grape fairy, little painter, special express and other song and dance programs, gradually showing her talent.

In 1932, Bai Hong wrote her first song "wanxiangyu" in EMI record company. Her first personal record was "mother's Lullaby / baby" released in February 1933, which was published by victory records. At that time, her real name was still belle. The stage name Baihong began to be used in late 1933. As for the name "Baihong", some people think that it comes from the allusion of Jingke stabbing Qin Baihong into "Japan" and contains the idea of Anti Japanese. In just one or two years, she became popular in such songs as "memories", "good night to you", "the first kiss" and "whispers in the middle of the night".

In 1933, Mingyue opera company was reorganized into Xinyue opera company. In the advertisement of Shenbao at that time, Baihong was the key target of promotion. At this time, she became famous. In the turbulent era of war, Mingyue society was dissolved and rebuilt many times, and its members became accustomed to it. Bai Hong has never left Shanghai. During the dissolution of the association, he and other members went to the radio station under the arrangement of Li Jinhui to advertise the goods, solve the problem of living expenses, and at the same time, he trained his singing skills. Once upon a time, Bai Hong was dissolved for a long time. Bai Hong and Li Lili joined Nanyang Gaoshang and studied for nearly a year.

Queen of song and dance

In 1934, Shanghai "big evening news" held a "radio star election", which was the first pop star election in China and a grand event in the "entertainment circle" of Shanghai at that time. At that time, it had become a popular trend for radio stations to invite singers to sing, "broadcast singers" came into being. Cui wanqiu, a supplement to Shanghai Evening News, launched the campaign of "three major broadcast singers". In order to run the competition well, the "big evening news" has opened the column of "today's wonderful broadcast program" since May 2. Every day, it forecasts which radio station a singer from each broadcasting group will broadcast on and which song to sing, so that the audience can listen to it selectively. The official election campaign starts on May 26 and ends on June 14. Singers go to the radio station as usual every day. The audience vote for their favorite singer every day, and finally decide the place by the number of votes.

At the beginning of the competition, Bai Hong and Zhou Xuan took the lead. In the 18 day competition, the two had their own priorities. On June 14, the fifth edition of the great evening news published the election results. Bai Hong won the title of "Queen of songs" with 9103 votes. Zhou Xuan, who was not very famous at that time, ranked second in the league with 8876 votes. Third, Wang Manjie, with 8854 votes. At that time, the three pop stars were very popular. For example, the pictorial of pop stars, which was first published in August 1935, used the head portraits of Bai Hong, Zhou Xuan and Wang Manjie as the covers of the first, second and third issues. The result of this competition has established Bai Hong's unshakable first-line position in the singing world.

In the 1930s, Bai Hong recorded a large number of songs in EMI, Shengli, Gaoting, Lige, Greater China and other brands, and sang countless songs that were not recorded on the radio. During the election campaign, she mostly sang songs written by Li Jinhui, which can be said to be the first singing queen in China created by Li style time songs.

First on screen

In 1934, with the recommendation of Li Jinhui, Bai Hong took part in Yihua's musical song and dance dialogue blockbuster "fairies on earth". This is her first time to show herself on the screen. She also sang the film theme song "fairies on earth" and the episode "the desolation of silver", which was all the rage. In the same year, Bai Hong was the first protagonist in the Shanghai film company's vocal song and dance film bodybuilding. Later, she played the heroine in the 1936 film, but directed by Du Yu. "The beauty of the country" imitates the expression of Hollywood movies, with magnificent singing and dancing scenes, and satirizes the difficulties of urban life. However, Du Yu praised Bai Hong for her performance, saying that she was indeed an outstanding talent in the field of Chinese song and dance.

At the beginning of 1935, Li Jinhui reorganized the Mingyue opera house. This time, the scope of organization was very large, and many old members returned one after another. Bai Hong was already the pillar of the drama club. At the end of July 1935, Bai Hong and Li Mingjian starred in the new song and dance drama huashengmi. The two interludes "changshengguo" and "Songlang" in the play are both works by Li Jinguang, which were popular after Bai Hong made a record.

In April 1936, Mingyue song and dance club held the 15th anniversary celebration meeting in Jincheng Grand Theater, and premiered the five act song and dance drama "Prince peach blossom". Led by Bai Hong and Yan Hua, the play is co performed by more than 60 stars, including Li Minghui, Li Lili, Li Mingjian, Zhou Xuan and Yan Fei. It is known as "unprecedented" and "arrogant" and has great momentum. At the same time, Bai Hong recorded many song and dance drama episodes such as "Carnival", "wine talk", "prison chant" and "the fashion of youth" in Bai Dai. After the Shanghai public performance, Mingyue society went to Nanjing to perform again, and the performances were full. At that time, after watching the performance, Tian Han specially published an article to encourage the performance. Bai Hong's singing and acting skills are highly praised by the media.

After returning home with a high reputation, the troupe was waiting for a ship to go abroad in Shanghai. From July 1936, Bai Hong, as a pillar, toured Nanyang with the Greater China song and dance troupe led by Li Jinguang and Yan Hua, and returned to Shanghai in July the next year, which lasted for a whole year and was welcomed by the local overseas Chinese audience. During this period, Bai Hong gained love, and her teacher-student relationship with Li Jinguang became husband and wife. Unfortunately, due to various problems such as poor management, there were contradictions and differences within the troupe, which eventually dissolved in Batavia.

Shortly after returning to China, due to the war on August 13, all theatrical performances were suspended, and the economy was poor and life was unstable. In December 1937, Li Jinguang went to Nanyang with Yan Hua's "Wanhua song and Dance Troupe", while Bai Hong, who was in poor health, stayed in Shanghai and spent a hard time. At this time, Bai Hong once played in the theater civilization drama, and with Gu Menghe and others became the initiator of the "improved civilization drama" initiative. In 1938, Xinxing drama had established its business foundation in Shanghai, and Bai Hong joined the "green bird drama company" organized by Yu Ling and others. She played the first role in the play "Thunderstorm". Since then, thanks to Ouyang Yuqian's appreciation, Bai Hong temporarily replaced Yin Qing, who was ill, in sunrise to play Gu BA's grandmother. She only rehearsed for half a day, and then went on the stage the next day.

Due to the successful performance of this role, Bai Hong was invited to take part in the shooting of the film sunrise by Xinhua company, and then became one of the basic actors of Xinhua. From 1938 to 1940, she successively made dozens of films, such as the flying corpse of langui, the fan of the young grandmother, the world of gold and silver, the three swordsmen, Li Hentian, Wang Xifeng's havoc in ningguofu, the autumn rain of Xiaoxiang, Diao Liushi, etc. There are many wonderful performances, such as Jia Rong as a man in the movie "Wang Xifeng's havoc in ningguofu", Xiao Hong as a circus actress who was humiliated to death in "Li Hentian", and Xiao Mei as an orphan left by Rose (Wang Renmei). In Diao Liu's, three swordsmen, yunshang fairy, broadcast Tai Da's murder case, LAN GUI's flying corpse, Xiao Xiang's autumn rain, love heaven's blood tears, Wu Zetian, and red line stealing box, Bai Hong sings songs. Diao Liu's is the last play of Xinhua, and Bai Hong thinks that she is the most diligent one. In addition, Bai Hong also voiced China's first full-length three-dimensional animated film "Princess Iron Fan", which was released in 1941, and acted as the character model of Princess Iron Fan in the first half of the film.

Gudao spring and Autumn

Besides acting in movies, Bai Hong actively devoted herself to the stage. In March 1939, Bai Hong performed the opera "Peach Blossom Land" adapted from Wei Ruhui, a left-wing dramatist. In the Mid Autumn Festival of 1939, Bai Hong starred in Princess Yang at Lafite theater. Then, on September 29, 1939, the opera song of Shanghai, composed by Zhang Hao and written by Cai Bingbai, with the theme of Anti Japanese war life, premiered at Lafayette Garden Theatre, Lafayette Road, French concession. Bai Hong and Gong Qiuxia were the heroines of Zou Xiaofeng in the form of group A and group B. 18 performances in 9 days were well received. The episodes "brother, you love me" and "forget me" were recorded by Bai Hong and became famous songs in the play. At the end of 1940, the song of Shanghai was staged for the second time, and Bai Hong was the heroine again. Then, from December 31, 1940 to January 4, 1941, he starred in the four act opera "song of the earth", composed by Qian Renkang and written by Cai Bingbai, and sang songs such as "fishing girl" and "woodcutter song". The play is close to the style of European opera and describes the anti riot stories in rural areas in the south of the Yangtze River

Chinese PinYin : Bai Hong