From drama to literature, from romance to reality, they string together Huang Zongying's life.
| Author: Ershui
| Editor: Ah Ye
| Editor: Su Su
"Sweet Sister" Huang Zongying is gone...
According to the relevant person in charge of the Shanghai Writers Association, Mr. Huang Zongying, a famous performance artist and writer in China, passed away at 3:28 a.m. today at the age of 95.
Huang Zongying's life is a life of constantly writing legends: she has transformed from a popular "top-notch" actress to an excellent writer who has worked tirelessly; she has experienced 4 marriages and 3 widows, but has always pursued the romance of love...
In the eyes of the world, Huang Zongying has always been spontaneous and confident. Her son Zhao Zuo accurately concluded: "My mother has loved the stage, movies, literature all her life, laughter, beauty, art, and a lifetime of youth and vigor." ”
The "sweet sister" in the world has a patriotic heart
Being an actor is Huang Zongying's dream since childhood.
In 1925, Huang Zongying was born into a family of high-ranking intellectuals, the son of chief engineer of the Telephone Bureau. She is the fifth oldest in the family, with two older sisters and two older brothers on the top, and two younger brothers below.
The Huang family brothers and sisters. The first left in the front row is Huang Zongying.
Once, she and her family went to the theater to see a play, and the actor's performance on the stage left a deep impression on the little Huang Zongying. Since then, she has become deeply fascinated by theater and dreams of one day being on the big stage herself.
But the weather was unpredictable, when Huang Zongying was 9 years old, his father died of illness. After that, the family fell in the middle of the road, and at a young age, she had to drop out of school at home, help her mother take care of the housework, do needlework to supplement the family, and the "drama dream" gradually became "the dream of raising a family, filial piety, and providing for her brothers to go to school."
The turning point of fate was laid in 1941.
At that time, 16-year-old Huang Zongying came to Shanghai alone to join his eldest brother Huang Zongjiang and entered a troupe as an intern. 2 years later, she accidentally got the opportunity to step onto the drama stage, starring in the famous director Hu Daozuo's light comedy "Sweet Sister", playing a delicate big lady in the play.
Unexpectedly, "Sweet Sister" instantly became popular on the beach, with more than 100 stalls and full fields. Since then, "Sweet Sister" has also become synonymous with Huang Zongying. Many rich wives and ladies on the beach rushed to imitate her outfit in the play, and even some people took their own tailors to see the play, and named the big red tweed top and white canvas breeches worn in the "Sweet Sister" play. After the performance ended, a large number of fans flocked backstage, scrambling to send flowers to Huang Zongying and invite her to enjoy the light and eat.
Years later, huang Zongying always recalled this scene of his youth, always shyly laughing and saying: "When I was young, I was really scared out!" ”
Huang Zongying in his youth
In 1947, director Chen Liting was preparing to make the movie "Rhapsody of Happiness", which was a headache for the selection of the heroine. Inadvertently seeing Huang Zongying's photo under the glass panel of a friend's desk, Director Chen patted the table and said, "These are these eyes!" In this way, Huang Zongying was selected and moved from the stage to the screen.
"Rhapsody of Happiness" was well received after its release, and Huang Zongying also became a "famous character" in Shanghai Beach, but she did not have time to enjoy this so-called song and dance.
At that time, Shanghai Beach was shrouded in white terror due to the breakdown of negotiations between the Kuomintang and the Communists. In 1946, Kunlun Pictures, co-founded by a number of progressive filmmakers, made a film called "A River of Spring Water Flows Eastward", which mainly tells the story of a family's joys and sorrows during the great changes in China's War of Resistance Against Japan. As soon as the film was released, it caused a sensation in the Chinese film industry, and Shanghai Beach also set off a "Kunlun whirlwind", and many people with lofty ideals joined Kunlun Pictures.
Huang Zongying also watched "A River of Spring Water Flows Eastward" at that time, and knew the feelings that the film wanted to convey. Although she has lived under neon lights for a long time, her heart is yearning for progress and new China.
In the autumn of 1947, Kunlun general manager Ren Zongde invited Huang Zongying to Kunlun Pictures to shoot films, Huang Zongying was not afraid of the risk of being attacked and persecuted, and soon signed an actor contract to participate in Kunlun Pictures' "Beauty Walk", "Sparrow and Crow" and other progressive films. She said: "[These films] were shot in the midst of the cannons that greeted liberation, and they were filmed in a down-to-earth manner, with a solid foundation, with sound and color. ”
Stills from "Beauty Walk". (The first from the right is Huang Zongying)
It is worth mentioning that in the film "The Crow and the Sparrow", which was filmed before the liberation and completed after the liberation, Huang Zongying played the mistress of a small Kuomintang bureaucrat, sometimes charming and frivolous, sometimes fierce and vicious, and this performance can be described as subversive for himself. It is also from this movie that Huang Zongying changed from a natural actor to a character actor.
"I am not ashamed of not learning, but I am sorry that I do not learn"
Unlike his dream of being an actor since childhood, becoming a writer is something that Huang Zongying himself did not expect.
In 1946, the 21-year-old Huang Zongying was invited to return to Shanghai for a charity performance after filming the movie "Chase" in Beiping. In her free time, she likes to read books, read English, and practice Xiaokai from time to time, but what makes her most invested is writing.
Accumulating over time and writing more articles, she collected the articles and submitted them to the Shanghai Wen Wei Po. Unexpectedly, this opened the door to a new world for her - she began to serialize essays in literary supplements under the title of "Cold Window Walking Pen".
Some people in the literary and art circles commented that Huang Zongying created a "reportage of prose culture" with the delicacy of women and the lyrical tone of prose.
In October 1950, Huang Zongying, who broke into the literary world, participated in the Second World Congress for the Defense of Peace held in Warsaw, Poland, as a member of the Chinese delegation. At that time, the leader of the team was Guo Moruo, then vice premier of the State Council and chairman of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and the members of the regiment included Zhang Lan, Ma Yinchu, Sheng Pihua, Ba Jin, etc. Huang Zongying, who was 25 years old at the time, was the youngest member of the regiment.
During the meeting, they visited Auschwitz, the ruins of the Holocaust Jewish population, as well as factories and the ancient city. Huang Zongying felt the courage of the local people to defend their homeland and the perseverance of building a beautiful homeland, and with his heart fluctuating, he picked up a pen and wrote a number of essays.
In 1950, Ba Jin (first from right) and Huang Zongying (center) at the Second World Congress for the Defence of Peace in Poland.
After returning to China, although the organization did not assign the task of writing, Huang Zongying took the initiative to hand over a stack of articles. In 1952, The Pingming Publishing House, with Ba Jin as the editor-in-chief, edited the article and published the book "The Peace Train Goes Forward". This is the first monograph of Huang Zongying's life, and it was later included in the first series of the "New Era Literature Series".
Gradually, Huang Zongying turned from a film actor to a professional writer of the Shanghai Writers Association.
This cross-border was regarded by many people as anecdote in the cultural circle at that time. But Huang Zongying believes that since he has become a writer, he must make a voice that should be made. She once set herself a motto: "Don't be ashamed of not being ashamed, only regret not learning." Along the way, Huang Zongying has always practiced this sentence and has never given up learning.
In the 1970s, Huang Zongying, who was in his 50s, gave up a stable and comfortable life and began to do fieldwork and write reportage.
When she went out to interview, she only sat in a hard bed; when she arrived in the province, she did not look for the local official reception, and found an ordinary guest house to live; there was no place to bathe on a hot day, so she rushed into the pile of men wearing only shorts to make a basin of cold water, and went back to the room to wash it; hungry on the road, she bought two melons on the side of the road to solve, ate the melon, rested her feet, and continued on the road.
In 1983, Huang Zongying wrote her first reportage into Tibet, "Log Cabin", which tells the story of female scientist Xu Fengxiang's dedication to building a plateau ecological research station; 2 years later, Huang Zongying, who was over 2 years old, went to Tibet for the second time and followed the film crew to shoot the documentary "Log Cabin"; when she entered Tibet for the third time, she was nearly seventy years old, but she still visited the Brahmaputra Grand Canyon with scientists, and as a result, she was comatose for two days and two nights due to severe altitude sickness.
Huang Zongying (right) and Alpine forest ecologist Xu Fengxiang.
In a letter to a friend, Huang Zongying explained the reason for entering Tibet many times: "It is difficult to understand the times, the people, and the current situation without sharing the weal and woe with the masses. I am not a timid person, nor am I a brave person. I just don't want to make writing articles a task, but I want to use my pen to speak to society. ”
Live a lifetime for love
Huang Zongying, who has interpreted the joys and sorrows in the drama and also used his pen to personally depict the lives of others, has experienced 4 feelings in his life, and each paragraph is lamentable.
While working in a troupe in Shanghai, 18-year-old Huang Zongying became acquainted with the troupe's talented son, Yifang (whose real name was Guo Yuantong). This man can act on stage, compose music when he gets off stage, and conduct the whole band like a decent one. Huang Zongying fell in love, and the two entered the palace of marriage. However, the other party suffered from a serious heart condition, fell ill on the day of marriage, and died on the 18th day after marriage.
The short marriage made Huang Zongying very devastated for a while. After half a year of depression, she returned to the stage and joined the North and South Drama Club. At the same time, she felt that she should have a stable life to heal her heartbreak.
Under the introduction of his brother Huang Zongjiang, Cheng Shuyao, the president of the Nanbei Drama Society, entered Huang Zongying's life. Cheng Shuyao, from a solid family in Beijing, graduated from Yenching University, worked as an English secretary in a bank, had a good salary, and later founded the Nanbei Drama Club.
Huang Zongying and Cheng Shuyao gradually developed a relationship in the process of getting along, and married in 1946. But before long, there was a contradiction in their marriage. The Cheng family is a big family, pay attention to etiquette, the daughter-in-law marries in to marry the husband and teach the children, eat can not be on the table, but also to give everyone a meal. More importantly, the Cheng family did not allow Huang Zongying to continue acting.
Such a constraint, Huang Zongying is not used to, nor can he stand it. The two eventually ended in divorce.
Beautiful women are never short of suitors. During the filming of "Happy Rhapsody", Huang Zongying sparked with Zhao Dan, who played the opposite role, and the "Happiness Rhapsody" in the movie was not overheard, and the "love march" in reality was quietly played.
In 1948, Huang Zongying and Zhao Dan married, and she affectionately called each other "Adam". The two feel sorry for each other, and will also put forward opinions on their acting careers for each other, becoming the "fairy lovers" of the film and television circle.
Zhao Dan (left) and Huang Zongying
Someone once asked Huang Zongying, what is the most difficult role in his life? She answered: It is difficult to be Zhao Dan's wife, but the most successful role in her life is also Zhao Dan's wife.
However, such happy days did not last long. In 1966, Zhao Dan was imprisoned for political reasons, leaving Huang Zongying alone with Zhao Dan and his ex-wife's two children. But she did not give up her life, but raised her two children with her heart while waiting for her husband to return.
Zhao Dan (right), Huang Zongying (middle) and the child.
In 1971, Zhao Dan, who had been imprisoned for five years, regained his freedom. The two thought that after experiencing the ups and downs of life, they could finally join hands to grow old, but in 1980, Zhao Dan was found to be terminally ill with cancer and died in the same year.
Huang Zongying once again experienced a "death farewell". Because he felt that Zhao Dan's death was "not quiet", Huang Zongying secretly decided that all the anthologies must contain Zhao Dan's things. Later, she left Shanghai for Shenzhen, founded the Dole Culture Company, and also established Shenzhen's first independent bookstore "Dole Book House", in which the word "Dole" comes from Zhao Dan's last words: "May the world be happy".
After Zhao Dan left, the lively Huang Zongying took the form of a single shadow and lived alone for 13 years.
During a lecture, the audience asked Huang Zongying, will you still find a partner? Huang Zongying said, I was originally married to a very wide river, and now if I want to get married again, I will marry the "sea" with better learning.
Feng Yidai is that "sea".
In 1993, when Huang Zongying was visiting relatives in the United States, because he wanted to translate the poetry of a foreign poet, he wrote a letter to ask his brother Huang Zongjiang's good friend Feng Yidai, a famous translator and publisher, who introduced Hemingway to Chinese readers in his early years.
Huang Zongying (left) and Feng Yidai.
It was a touching twilight love, 68-year-old she and 80-year-old him fish and goose flirted for 8 months, more than 400,000 words of love letters. Finally, in 1993, in the "Seventh Heaven" in Beijing (Feng Yidai's house is on the seventh floor, commonly known as the "Seventh Heaven"), Huang Zongying married Feng Yidai, the "sea" in her mind.
Later, an editor proposed that the two elderly people be asked to publish a collection of love letters that witnessed their happy twilight love, and Huang Zongying and Feng Yidai gladly agreed. Unfortunately, just before the book was published, Feng Yidai died of illness.
In August 2005, the collection of love letters that witnessed their happy twilight love, "Pure Love - Feng Yidai Huang Zongying Love Letters", was published. Huang Zongying wrote two "love letters" to her lover in heaven as the preface to "Pure Love", she wrote: "Dear, we will hug each other tightly in the printing press, the binding machine, the envelope machine, in the readership that loves us, in front of relatives and friends. Are you happy? Kiss you. Love your little sister more and more. ”
From drama to literature, from romance to reality, they string together Huang Zongying's life. She is an actress and a screenwriter. Live in it, revel in it, feel it.
Huang Zongying once said before his death, "When one dream comes true, we begin to pursue another dream." Desire to do something else that is hard to come by. The echo of dreams evokes new dreams, and the cycle is endless, and life goes on. ”
May she have dreams in heaven...