Speaking of the name Zhao Lirong, some people may know it, but there are also many people who do not know it. But as long as he says "court jade liquor" to Chinese, then he will definitely answer "one hundred and eighteen glasses".
This line is from Zhao Lirong's sketch interpretation on the Spring Festival Gala. Not only that, Zhao Lirong has many other classic works.
But such an artist, who brings people laughter, is suffering from illness. One late night in 1999, Zhao Lirong was in so much pain that she even put on her birthday clothes and prayed for her to be relieved as soon as possible.
01 Late bloomer, Spring Festival Gala superstar
If you want to ask a Chinese: "What is your memory of the Spring Festival Gala?" Then he may tell you that it is Teacher Li Guyi's "unforgettable tonight" for decades, Fei Xiang's song "A Fire in Winter", or Zhao Benshan and Song Dandan's "White Cloud and Black Earth".
But no matter how complicated the answer is, Teacher Zhao Lirong will definitely appear in the answer, for no other reason, but because Teacher Zhao Lirong's Spring Festival Gala Xiaoping is too "top".
On January 30, 1995, it was Chinese New Year's Eve night, and people across the country sat in front of the televisions and watched the upcoming Spring Festival Gala.
Soon after, an introduction appeared on TV, and the audience learned that there was a skit called "So Packaged" next.
The name instantly aroused the interest of the audience, "packaging" was one of the most fashionable words of that year, and the audience wanted to see how to "package" the Spring Festival Gala.
As a result, just a few minutes after the performance of the sketch, the audience was completely captured by the sketch, and I saw an old lady on TV, but wearing a fashionable leather suit, singing and dancing, and even playing the very fashionable "rap" at that time! The lines spoken are also very interesting, making people have to enter the world of sketch interpretation.
At the end of the skit, the old lady knelt on one knee after the dance, and won a full house.
As soon as the sketch was broadcast, it caused a lot of heated discussion. At this time, people learned that the old lady in the original sketch was 67 years old.
This shocked many people, some people said: "When my old lady was seventy years old, she lay in bed all day, how can she compare to that old lady, who is still jumping and jumping at the age of 67."
The playback effect of this work is simply incomparable, and Zhao Lirong has harvested the second spring of his acting career at the age of almost seventy, which can be called a late bloomer.
But what is even more surprising is that just a year later, Zhao Lirong and Gong Hanlin once again brought another hilarious story: "Working Adventures".
Today, nearly thirty years later, there may be many young people who have not heard of this skit, but the famous line "Court jade liquor, one hundred and eighteen glasses" appears in this skit. How famous is this line?
People even have a joke that if you say to a Chinese, "Court jade liquor", as long as he can't answer the next sentence, then it may be a spy.
Although this is a joke, it also shows how famous Teacher Zhao Lirong's sketches are.
"Working Adventure" also won the first prize in the favorite Spring Festival Gala program and small category of the Chunlan Cup in the same year.
However, this teacher Zhao Lirong, who brings us endless joy, her life is difficult, even tragic.
02 Bonded with the drama, ill-fated
In 1928, Zhao Lirong was born, and at this time she was not called Zhao Lirong, but "Old Love".
I don't know what the meaning of her mother's name is, but Zhao Lirong's life has been very difficult, which is very different from the "love" in this name.
I have to say that Zhao Lirong is a natural acting material, and she participated in opera performances when she was only one year old. In a drama, she was brought on stage to make a cameo appearance as "Caiwazi", that is, the god of joy.
When Mainland was six years old, she began to act officially.
At the age of twelve, her sister changed the name of "Old Love" to Zhao Lirong, and introduced her to a master: Ma Jingui, and Zhao Lirong began to embark on the road of acting.
Although acting is now a very glamorous profession, in those days, acting was the most menial job, and after death, you could not even enter the ancestral grave for burial.
Moreover, Zhao Lirong is not the material to be the starring actor, because her face looks more old-fashioned, Zhao Lirong can only play the role of "Lao Dan" style.
Although the work was not particularly brilliant, it was smooth and smooth, and the road was dull, but life gave Zhao Lirong a big blow.
In 1953, Zhao Lirong married her first husband Sheng Qiang. At first, the two lived a happy life, giving birth to a son after two years of marriage, and in 1957, another child fell to the ground.
However, life did not want Zhao Lirong's happiness to continue, and in 1960, Zhao Lirong got a bad news: her husband Sheng Qiang died tragically in labor.
Faced with this result, Zhao Lirong could not do anything, she could only accept it silently, after all, she still had two children to raise.
In 1964, with the help of her family, Zhao Lirong and Sheng Qiang's younger brother Sheng Hong were united, but this bad luck entangled Zhao Lirong again.
In 1970, Zhao Lirong's newborn daughter was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and although she tried her best to treat her, her daughter died seven years later.
In 1984, Sheng Hong also died of a sudden heart attack.
03 Kiss me and sing in return
Under this series of blows, it gave birth to the peak of Zhao Lirong's career.
In 1986, Zhao Lirong played the role of "Queen Che Chi" in the 86 version of Journey to the West. Two years later, at the age of 60, she officially appeared on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala.
Not only that, but one award after another has also followed: Tokyo Film Festival Queen, Popular Film Hundred Flowers Award and so on.
But the most well-known is Zhao Lirong's several sketches, in the sketches, Zhao Lirong can often make people laugh, often a few seconds to have a baggage, a skit to watch, the audience can even laugh breathlessly.
But who could have known that she had suffered so much, and even when she performed the Spring Festival Gala, she was tormented by illness.
In the sketch "So Packaged", Zhao Lirong's last kneeling on one knee was not a special design, but at this time, Zhao Lirong had been tortured by pain and could not stand up, so she had to find an opportunity to kneel on the ground.
In 1999, Zhao Lirong was diagnosed with advanced liver cancer.
In the face of such a huge bad news, Zhao Lirong herself was relieved, and in the face of the crying of the people around her, she even spoke out to explain them, so that they should not be too sad and rest more.
But the torture of lung cancer is still amazing, one night, Zhao Lirong was in so much pain that she couldn't stand it, so she put on her own birthday clothes and asked the doctor to euthanize her.
But in those days, how could doctors have the right to do such a thing? So Zhao Lirong persisted for a year and died in 2000.
When she died, her family prepared a portrait of her, and although the portrait was surrounded by white flowers, she still seemed to bring happiness to people dressed in red and smiling as usual.