Gu Yue was born with a face that resembled Mao Zedong, creating one image of Mao Zedong after another on the screen, and is recognized as the closest special actor to a generation of great people in terms of appearance and temperament among the special actors who play Mao Zedong.
Maybe there is providence in the underworld, Gu Yue is an orphan, and he doesn't know his date of birth. When he joined the revolutionary ranks, the organization asked him what his birthday was, and he scratched his head and said, "I seem to have been born in September, so let's fill in September 9." I can't imagine that the date he casually said was the date of Mao Zedong's death.
In 1990, the movie "Armageddon" was filming several scenes of Mao Zedong and Li Na in Xibaipo, and it happened that Li Na himself was visiting Xibaipo in those days. One day at noon, when the actors returned to their residence from the shooting scene, Li Na, who had been waiting there, saw Mao Zedong's actor Gu Yue at a glance. She was very excited, pulled "Mao Zedong" to the sofa in the room and sat down, crouching in front of Gu Yue like a child, staring at Gu Yue's face, and her eyes could not help but shed tears.
Seeing that Gu Yue was a little embarrassed, Li Ne grabbed Gu Yue's hand and said, "Your hand feels the same as my father's hand!" When I was a child, I always liked to hold my father's hand, and my father took me around like this, all the way to Beijing City... I miss Daddy! After saying that, Li Na couldn't bear it any longer and pounced on Gu Yue's body and cried bitterly. Gu Yue patted Li Na's back and comforted, "I understand, I understand... Everyone present couldn't help but shed tears.
In the winter of 1949, Nanning was liberated. The comrades of the Thirteenth Army Cultural and Labor Corps found a group of children of about ten years old in a large courtyard in the city. At that time, these children were squatting on the ground and cooking rice with their lunch boxes and teapots. When the comrades of the cultural troupe inquired, they knew that this was an orphanage. Because of the war, the managers of the orphanage ran away and left the orphans in the orphanage. Seeing that these children were helpless and helpless, the cultural and labor troupe decided to put them under the management of the cultural and labor troupe, raise these children to adulthood, train them into literary and artistic talents of the army, and serve the building of the army. In this way, this group of children entered the army, including Gu Yue, who was twelve years old at the time, and his sister.
Gu Yue was born in 1937 to a poor peasant family surnamed Hu in Hubei Province. When he was 6 years old, his parents died one after another, and his sister took him around to Guangxi. In Nanning, they met a well-meaning person who sent the two brothers and sisters to an orphanage, and the two barely survived.
The conditions of the cultural troupe at that time were very difficult. A "little devil" as big as Gu Yue only issued a military uniform and did not change his clothes. So in order to prevent lice from getting into their clothes, every night when they go to bed, everyone goes into the Chase bunk naked. However, although Gu Yue, like the children, had run out of sleep and slipped into the bed, she always wore a belt around her waist, and the children were very strange. One night, a few naughty children pressed Gu Yue down on the bunk, found a hard thing in his belt, and took it apart to see that it was a silver dollar! This silver dollar is still the only inheritance left by Gu Yue's father to their sisters and brothers before he died, after so many years, even if he is bitter and hungry, Gu Yue has always been reluctant to spend!
At the beginning, the literary troupe arranged for Gu Yue to learn to paint. Gu Yue also liked to draw, and he used the silver dollar to buy a lot of paper and pencils, and drew non-stop every day. However, Gu Yue's talent for painting was limited, and although he worked very hard, the paintings he drew were always almost meaningless, which made him very distressed.
One day in the late 1970s, Gu Yue's cultural troupe went to the front line of Yunnan to perform condolences and performances. Before a performance, when Gu Yue helped the troupe set up a stage, one of the helping fighters suddenly shouted: "Hey, why are you so much like Chairman Mao?" The other warriors also gathered around when they heard it, looked around Gu Yue, and finally said, "Like, it's really like!" "
At that time, the Bayi Film Studio was preparing to shoot the movie "Xi'an Incident" and was selecting special actors for the whole country. The regiment took a few photos of Gu Yue and sent them to the election. Zhang Jinghua, director of the Bayi Studio, saw Gu Yue's photo and patted his thigh: Isn't this Chairman Mao himself? So he hurriedly reported to Marshal Ye Jianying, who was concerned about the filming of this film, and Ye Shuai looked at Gu Yue's photo and thought it was very similar. So in June 1980, Gu Yue was quickly summoned to Xi'an by the choreographer of the "Xi'an Incident".
At that time, the crew of "Xi'an Incident" had already found several special actors who played Chairman Mao. Before the official shooting, the director asked several people to each perform a sketch to try the shot. Gu Yue was nervous because he had never seen Chairman Mao either, only a picture of chairman in the newspaper. But in order to play Chairman Mao, he decided to fight!
It was Gu Yue's turn to play. I saw him with his eyebrows slightly locked, felt a cigarette from his pocket, and lit a match. But he was not in a hurry to light a cigarette, but took a burning match and learned to use Hunan dialect: "The core force leading our cause is the Communist Party of China, and the theoretical basis guiding our thinking is Marxism-Leninism..."
"Stop!" Everyone present was stunned -- wasn't this Chairman Mao? All the people in the crew applauded enthusiastically, and the excited director rushed up and hugged Gu Yue tightly.
At that time, there were very few special actors in China, and there was no example to learn from, so how to play Mao Zedong well, Gu Yue could only figure it out for herself. He is very clear that as a "special actor", he only has half the conditions: "I am a special type, but I am not an actor." "
Gu Yue's lover is very supportive of her husband playing Chairman Mao, and she sent Gu Yue the Complete Works of Stanilawsky from Yunnan, so that her husband can learn how to perform, how to go deep into the inner world of the character, and turn the actor into a role, rather than staying in simple imitation. The lover encouraged him to go into the heart of the chairman and make himself and the chairman one on the screen...
With the encouragement of his wife, Gu Yue read a large number of Mao Zedong's works, collected and watched a large number of Mao Zedong's information films, and imitated Mao Zedong's physical movements from these materials. In order to pursue the "god-like", Gu Yue ran to the library to study modern historical materials as soon as he had time, and went to the door to ask the comrades who had worked next to the chairman for advice.
In the expansion pack, Gu Yue found that her smoking posture was different from that of Mao Zedong: when Mao Zedong smoked, the cigarette was always sandwiched between his fingers, and when he smoked, the cigarette was placed in the middle of his lips, and the palm of the cigarette refused to mouth. When I smoke myself, I always clamp the cigarette with two fingers. So he practiced according to Mao Zedong's posture for more than half a month, and when he once again appeared in front of the comrade who had worked next to the chairman with a cigarette, the comrade could not help but give a thumbs up: "That's how the chairman smokes!" "
In this way, Gu Yue started from every detail, looked for and studied Mao Zedong's unique movements, found one and took notes down, and then practiced repeatedly. He also collected more than 600 photographs of Mao Zedong at various periods, hung chronologically in his room, and studied them every day until midnight.
After the release of "Xi'an Incident", Gu Yue was praised by the audience, saying that he played Chairman Mao to life. Some enthusiastic viewers also wrote to Gu Yue, hoping that Gu Yue would continue to work hard to create more and better Mao Zedong's film and television works. Gu Yue was touched by the enthusiasm of the audience, he thought that he was still far from the audience's expectations, and he was determined to continue to work hard to create a Mao Zedong with both form and god!
After acting in "Xi'an Incident", the lover found that Gu Yue had changed, no longer the lively but unstable Gu Yue, but more and more solemn, and he had deeply dissolved himself in the role of "Mao Zedong". The wife feels that a familiar husband is disappearing, and a great man who has passed away is being resurrected.
In 1982, Bayi Factory decided to shoot "Four Crossings of Red Water". This is the first film in the Chinese film industry to feature Mao Zedong as the protagonist, and Gu Yue picked the big beam to play Mao Zedong. At that time, from the central government to the people, they were paying attention to this film, and they all had unlimited expectations for Gu Yue.
When the car that picked up Gu Yue stopped in front of the film crew, a middle-aged man with a cigarette in his left hand and a steady pace stepped down from the car. Cigarette butts flickered in the darkness, and everyone was speechless: Isn't this Chairman Mao himself? The director rushed up and hugged Gu Yue: "True God, no need to wear makeup, you are Chairman Mao!" "
"Four Crossings of Red Water" achieved great success, and in the next few years, Gu Yue successfully created the image of Mao Zedong in different periods in films such as "Long March", "Founding Ceremony", "Great Armageddon" and so on, which caused a sensation in the country. After reading the "Founding Ceremony," the central leaders praised: "The film was filmed well, and Chairman Mao also acted well. With this film, Gu Yue also won the 13th Film "Hundred Flowers Award" for Best Actor.
During the performance of the opera "Long March", President Yang Shangkun also came to watch it in person. After the performance, Yang Shangkun specially received Gu Yue and asked him: "Gu Yue is not your real name, right?" Gu Yue replied, "I am Hu Shixue, and Gu Yue is my stage name." Chairman Yang also said: "You play Chairman Mao very similarly, but there is another point, I have worked around the chairman for many years, the chairman will not be rigid, he is so generous and frank at all times, in this regard, you still need to strengthen." "
After this meeting, Gu Yue became more consciously immersed in the role, laying the foundation for playing Mao Zedong in the future.
After Gu Yue became famous, the American cultural circles invited him to visit the United States. In the United States, he also set off a drum of "Mao Zedong fever".
When Gu Yue walked out of the New York airport, she was surrounded by hundreds of enthusiastic fans. When attending the opening ceremony of the Chinese film series at the Jiale Theater, the theater was full, and many people had no place to sit, so they had to stand in the aisle. When Gu Yue appeared in a Zhongshan costume and greeted everyone in Hunan dialect, the audience was sensational. The audience stood up spontaneously, and the applause lasted for more than three minutes, which made Gu Yue very moved. A reporter from Taiwan asked Gu Yue, "When can I go to Taiwan?" Gu Yue replied, "As a part of the motherland, Taiwan is very much going to go there to see." I am very willing to go to the treasure island of the motherland with Sun Feihu, the actor of Mr. Chiang Kai-shek. This answer ushered in a warm applause.
Notorious, Gu Yue still kept a clear head as always. He often said that he was able to have today because he borrowed Chairman Mao's light and because Chairman Mao always lived in the hearts of the people, not because he was so great.
In Gu Yue's more than 20 years of silver screen career, he has been like a day for several years, and he has never played any other role except Mao Zedong. Although he is not from the "acting class", through long-term exploration, accumulation and summary, Gu Yue's performance is accurate and skillful, extremely charming, and all those who have seen him play Mao Zedong admit that Gu Yue's appearance, especially temperament, is the closest to a generation of great people.
What moved Gu Yue the most was that on August 1, 1989, the General Political Department organized a party entitled "The People's Army Loves the Motherland." After the performance, when the central leaders received all the actors, General Yang Baibing, director of the General Political Department, came to Gu Yue and said, "I want to pay a tribute to Chairman Mao!" After speaking, General Yang solemnly raised his right hand and saluted a standard military salute to Gu Yue. Gu Yue hurriedly clenched his fists and said in Hunan dialect, "I don't dare to be a fake chairman, I don't dare to be!" The leaders and actors present all laughed heartily.
Gu Yue had a wish, that is, he most wanted to play the image of some little-known elderly Chairman Mao, including during the "Cultural Revolution". Unfortunately, on July 2, 2005, Gu Yue died of myocardial infarction and ineffective rescue at the age of 68. His wish to play the elderly Chairman Mao ultimately failed to materialize. The doctor said that Gu Yue's life was irregular and he stayed up late due to long-term filming, which triggered his myocardial infarction.
After Gu Yue's death, his good friend and famous special actor Lu Qi said: "He is a very good person, very demanding of himself, very straightforward personality, a bit like a child, happy and unhappy are written on the face." Although Gu Yue has passed away, in the hearts of the audience, he will always be the most like Chairman Mao's special actor in people's hearts. "