Florence Lim (21 January 1905 – 16 February 1979), better known as Lim Cho-cho, was a

Chinese Canadian , native_name = , native_name_lang = , image = Chinese Canadian population by province.svg , image_caption = Chinese Canadians as percent of population by province / territory , pop = 1,715,7704.63% of the ...

actress in the cinema of the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

and

British Hong Kong Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the Briti ...

from 1925 to 1954. She was the second wife of filmmaker Lai Man-Wai and the mother of actors Lai Hang and Lai Suen. Gigi Lai is her granddaughter.

Early life

Florence Lim was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, where her grandfather, an immigrant from Xinhui (now part of Jiangmen), Guangdong, China, owned a rice shop. Her father died when she was 3. She attended Chinese Public School in Victoria which allowed her to be proficient in both English and Chinese. When she was 9, her widowed mother went to Hong Kong to receive medical treatment, and at age 12 Lim joined her in Hong Kong, having completed primary school. In Hong Kong she enrolled in Ying Wa Girls' School. One of her classmates named Lai Hang-kau (who would later become known as Lai Cheuk-cheuk) introduced her to her uncle Lai Man-Wai. Even though he was 12 years her senior and already married, Lim married him as his second wife in 1920, when she was 15.

Career

Lim Cho-cho's acting career started in Hong Kong when she played the lead role in ''Rouge'' (1925), the first film produced by her husband's

China Sun Motion Picture Company Minxin Film Company (), also known as China Sun Motion Picture Company Ltd. (1923–1930) was one of the earliest movie studios in the history of Chinese cinema and Hong Kong cinema. History Established in 1922 in Hong Kong by director and acto ...

. In 1926, China Sun relocated to Shanghai, and there Lim continued to star in silent films such as '' A Poet from the Sea'' (1927) and '' Romance of the Western Chamber'' (1927). Her credits after China Sun became the Lianhua Film Company in 1930 included '' A Spray of Plum Blossoms'' (1931), '' Song of China'' (1935), '' National Customs'' (1935), and ''Song of a Kind Mother'' (1937). Lim particularly excelled in mother roles. Her son Lai Hang also appeared in many films around this time. In 1931, she also acted in the Indian film ''Kamar-Al-Zaman'', an adaptation of a tale from the

Arabian Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

directed by Shah G. Agha, where she appeared in the role of princess Budur. During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), the Lais first returned to Hong Kong when Japan invaded Shanghai in 1937. In Hong Kong Lim continued to act in films, many patriotic and anti-Japanese in nature. Following Japan's invasion of Hong Kong in 1941, the family escaped to mainland China, first to Chikan, Kaiping, Guangdong, where at one point Lim had to peddle old clothes on the street to make ends meet. When Japanese soldiers overran Kaiping in 1943, they fled again, this time to Guilin,

Guangxi Guangxi (; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the People's Republic ...

, where they ran a photographic studio. After the war ended, the family returned to Hong Kong, and Lim acted again for another 8 years. She retired after her husband's 1953 death to raise their 9 children. She visited mainland China in the 1970s before her death in Hong Kong in 1979. Liangyou 009 Lin Chuchu 林楚楚

Filmography

In popular culture

In the 1991 film '' Center Stage'', Lim Cho-cho is portrayed by Cecilia Yip, who spoke Cantonese,

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

and English in her role.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1905 births 1979 deaths 20th-century Chinese actresses 20th-century Hong Kong actresses 20th-century Canadian actresses Chinese film actresses Chinese silent film actresses Canadian film actresses Hong Kong film actresses Canadian actresses of Chinese descent Actresses from Victoria, British Columbia Canadian emigrants to Hong Kong Canadian silent film actresses