Liu Changyu, a famous Peking Opera performance artist, has a half-sister who is also engaged in Peking Opera art, and this sister is Zhou Changyun.
Liu Changyu and Zhou Changyun's father was named Zhou Dawen, and Zhou Dawen's father went north with the Taiping Army, fought until he was captured by the Qing army in Tianjin and joined the Qing army, settling in Tianjin, and his family became increasingly prosperous. On January 30, 1896, Zhou Dawen was born in Tianjin.
At the age of 16, Zhou Dawen graduated from the Tianjin New Book Academy, and in 1915, he married Zhang Xueliang and others as brothers with different surnames. After a few more years, he joined the Northeast Army, traveled east to Japan to study telegraphy, and after returning to China, he served as the director of the Electrical Affairs Department of the Fengtian Overseer's Office and the director of the Electric Affairs Department of the Grand Marshal's Office of Zhang Zuolin in Beijing. In the 1928 Huanggutun Incident, Zhou Dawen was injured in the hand on the way back to Shenyang with Zhang Zuolin. From 1931 to 1933, Zhou Dawen served as mayor of Peiping.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he was indicted by the Republic of China government for adultery, and was later released on medical parole for medical reasons. He married a wife and two concubines and gave birth to ten men and three daughters, the most famous of whom was the Peking Opera performance artist Liu Changyu, who was born to the third wife, Liu Shi, and took his mother's surname.
Zhou Dawen understands opera, loves antiques, is good at cooking, is actually a big player, after 1949, began a formal career as a chef; when he was young, he and Zhang Xueliang and a few other brothers ate all over the Chinese and Western dinners in Beijing and Tianjin, others ate it, what to do, he finished eating love to ponder, and slowly figured out a little doorway. In addition, he is a person with a heart, and usually likes to make friends with famous chefs in the court and the people, and those chefs see that Zhou Dawen can put down the shelf and ask for advice carefully, so they teach him the real skills. He once learned knife work from Mr. Chen Shihe, a chef at the Qingwang Mansion in Tianjin, and learned kung fu from Master Mu Xiangzhen of The Hongbin Building in Tianjin, and was able to learn from the strengths of others and cultivate a body of ability.
Zhou Changyun was born in Beijing in 1938, because his father loved the art of Peking Opera, and he was close to Mei Lanfang, Shang Xiaoyun, Cheng Yanqiu, Xun Huisheng and other famous Peking opera artists, and frequent contacts. The four famous Dan and his wife often visited the Zhou family to study the art of Peking Opera with Father Zhou, so Zhou Changyun was also full of Peking Opera art cells.
In 1950, Father Zhou led Zhou Changyun to apply for the Chinese Opera School. In the face of the examiner formation composed of more than 20 famous artists led by Principal Wang Yaoqing, Zhou Changyun, who had a small pigtail on his head, was not timid. She sang one paragraph after another, still not addicted, and then sang one paragraph after another. It wasn't until she was praised by the examiners: "This child has a really good voice, a really good voice, that she stopped singing."
Then she tested her acting skills, and the tutor asked her to perform different expressions of drinking soda and kerosene. Zhou Changyun cheerfully promised "no problem" while taking a cup of cold boiled water prepared for her. Only to see her lean back on her neck and swallow beautifully, "So sweet," she said triumphantly.
Just when Zhou Changyun was complacent about her excellent performance just now, the tutor asked her to perform the plot of drinking kerosene. Zhou Changyun raised his cup without thinking and drank it, and without drinking a sip of water, the tutor prompted: "This time it is not soda, it is kerosene." Zhou Changyun glanced at the people in disbelief and said in his heart, "Just so you know." She took a sip of water in her mouth and pondered it repeatedly for half a day, but she still couldn't find the feeling of drinking kerosene, and she couldn't make the expression she should have. Momentarily out of breath, she squirted a mouthful of water straight at the examiner, causing laughter in the hall. Since then, people will always see The lively and cheerful figure of Zhou Changyun in the campus of the vibrant Chinese opera school.
Zhou Changyun took a group photo with Mei Baojiu, Ye Shaolan and Zhao Tongxing
In 1951, she and Liu Xiurong and other senior classmates performed "The Legend of the White Snake" for Chairman Mao and other central leaders in Huairen Hall in Beijing. In 1953, Zhou Changyun also starred in "Thirteen Sisters" personally taught by President Wang Yaoqing for Fu Zuoyi, former minister of water and electricity, and other comrades.
In 1978, he performed "Shajiabang" in The Tai'an Peking Opera Troupe in Shandong Province.
In March 1958, facing graduation, the school leaders sent Zhou Changyun and Qu Suying (Chinese Peking Opera actor and Mrs. Qian Haoliang) to Shanxi for internship, and the two enthusiastic young people soon performed Wang (Yaoqing's) famous drama "Three High-Fives" at the Taiyuan Changfeng Theater. Accustomed to watching the Shanxi audience who was accustomed to covering their stomachs and singing to death, at first sight of a "new" Wang Baojun who paid attention to performance and had both form and god on the stage, he couldn't help but be bright in front of his eyes, and rushed to praise Zhou Changyun for playing the third sister of the living Wang.
After more than 20 years of stage and teaching practice, Zhou Changyun failed to realize his wish to return to Beijing due to the limitations of policies such as household registration and food relations at that time. President Shi Ruoxuan regrettably wrote a letter to the relevant personages in Hebei Province, introducing Zhou Changyun to work in Hebei. Si Xian, the then head of Hebei, eagerly welcomed Zhou Changyun and her lover Li Zhijie (a famous Peking Opera martial arts actor) to Teach in Hebei.
Zhou Changyun has trained Li Shengsu, Zhang Yanling, Wang Hongling, Yuan Shumei and other plum blossom award winners in Hebei Opera School.
At 9:48 on October 27, 2018, Zhou Changyun died in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, at the age of 80.