"Spicy chicken shreds", "Sima Cylinder smashed", "one cup of your appetizer, two cups of your kidneys do not lose"... To this day, countless viewers still remember the old lady who once brought us countless joys, and her smile on the stage seemed to be still in front of her eyes, and the laughter she brought seemed to still be in her ears. Maybe you don't even realize that this kind old lady has been away from us for 21 years.
Zhao Lirong's hometown is in Baodi County, Hebei Province. In the 1920s, her father, Zhao Bingzhong, fled his hometown to Shenyang to escape the chaos of war. In 1928, Zhao Bingzhong gave birth to his eighth child in Shenyang, she was Zhao Lirong, nicknamed "Old Love".
Zhao Bingzhong was a skilled barber, and among his customers were actors from the Fusheng Opera Company, which was famous in the northeast at the time. Over time, he also became friends with these actors, and was also hired to make up for the top brand of the drama club, Hua Dan "Hibiscus Flower".
Furong Hua is a very famous critic, she is very fond of Zhao Bingzhong's small "old love", and has repeatedly praised Zhao Lirong for having an aura and being a good seedling for singing. And Little Zhao Lirong, who plays with her father in the drama class every day, is also deeply in love with the industry of singing.
In 1940, the 12-year-old "old love" worshiped the hibiscus flower as a teacher, and the hibiscus flower she took a new name "Li Rong", hoping that she would be as colorful as the hibiscus flower in the future.
In the 1940s, Zhao Lirong played all over the northeast and north China, becoming a well-known "horn". Later, he went south to Shanghai, Nanjing and other places to perform, and was also well received by the audience. During her time in Shanghai, she was also guided by the drama master Ouyang Yuqian, and greatly improved her performance and singing.
After the liberation of Zhangjiakou on August 23, 1945, it became the seat of the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region Government. The party and the government of the Border Region have dispatched a number of revolutionary literary and art workers to carry out the reform of old operas together with the vast number of opera artists. Opera actors were organized to learn to perform new dramas, private classes were reorganized, The Fusheng Opera Club was changed to Qingfeng Opera Club, and Zhao Lirong gradually provoked the beams. She starred in the new dramas "Brothers and Sisters Opening the Wilderness", "Husband and Wife Literacy", and "White Haired Girl", which were highly praised by the party and the people.
In October 1946, after the Kuomintang attacked zhangjiakou, most of the actors of the Qingfeng Opera Company refused to perform for the old wives of the Kuomintang and rushed to their own journeys. Zhao Lirong also left Zhangjiakou for Beijing to take care of her mentor Furonghua, who was suffering from tuberculosis, in order to repay the favor of the encounter. She accompanied her in the hospital during the day, and at night she collected embroidery from the embroidery factory, and bought nutrition for the hibiscus flower with all the proceeds, and the body of the hibiscus flower also recovered rapidly under her care.
In December 1948, Peiping was peacefully liberated. The government decided to set up a youth drama club, sent people to invite Zhao Lirong to serve as the main actor, and successively rehearsed the revolutionary modern drama "White Haired Girl" and "Blood and Tears Vengeance". These two plays were staged for half a year, the venue was full, and they were highly praised by the masses. Zhao Lirong has also received many government commendations and awards, and is known as an actress with both virtue and art.
In 1952, Zhao Lirong was transferred to the General Political Liberation Experimental Critics Troupe and became colleagues with the famous opera critic Xin Fengxia. After watching Xin Fengxia's performance, Zhao Lirong felt that "there is a sky outside the sky, and there are people on the people", and felt that the new Fengxia was much higher than her own level, so she was willing to be the green leaves around the new Fengxia to set off this red flower.
Zhao Lirong's noble character of not caring about personal fame and fortune and being willing to play a supporting role was praised by the troupe, and since then, Zhao Lirong has become the "royal supporting role" of Xin Fengxia, and the two have cooperated tacitly to create and perform a large number of classic works represented by "Liu Qiao'er" and "Flowers as Media.".
In 1954, Zhao Lirong married Sheng Qiang, and shortly after giving birth to two sons, Sheng Qiang was wrongly classified as a rightist and died shortly after. Zhao Lirong put all her love on the drama critics and her two sons.
Zhao Lirong has a very strong sense of enterprise. She is a famous labor model in the troupe, performing continuously every day, and playing a fire. In addition to the performance, she also has to take care of her two sons as a father and a mother. This made Sheng Qiang's younger brother Sheng Ximin very moved, and he also had a good feeling for Zhao Lirong. He told Zhao Lirong's brothers and sisters about his ideas, and everyone thought that they were very compatible. In this way, Zhao Lirong and came together and gave birth to their third child, Sheng Qian, in 1965.
In the 1960s, after watching the commentary "Little Two Black Marriages", Mao Zedong decided to meet the main actors of the film. This is undoubtedly a huge political honor for artists, and it is also a rare opportunity to become famous. Zhao Lirong said to Xin Fengxia, "You just have to go, you are going to represent our big guys!" Say hello to Chairman Mao on my behalf! I have a shallow culture, and I can't say anything about the Tao..." Later, Chairman Mao asked Xin Fengxia, "Why didn't the Three Immortals who have been with you come?" After Xin Fengxia told the chairman zhao Lirong's words, the chairman nodded happily: "I didn't expect that the Three Immortals were still a modest person, good!" Humility makes people progress! ”
Just as Zhao Lirong's career was booming, the "Cultural Revolution" began. The theater stopped rehearsing and performing, and Zhao Lirong had to say goodbye to the stage and go to the countryside to receive re-education. It was not until ten years later, in 1976, that the literary and art circles, which had been frozen for ten years, finally ushered in spring.
Zhao Lirong returned to the China Critics Theatre. She rehearsed many new plays day and night, playing Xiu Yingniang in "The Accountant Girl" and Playing Little White Shoes in "Fake It", although they are all supporting roles, she still plays the characters brilliantly.
In 1981, the commentary drama "Yang Sanjie's Complaint" was about to be put on the screen. Zhao Lirong is very excited, she is determined to play this play well, she continues to study the role, play the character with her heart, sing the character with love, and the image of Yang Sanjie that she created has also become one of the most popular and unforgettable screen images in Chinese opera.
Although Zhao Lirong has become famous in the critics circle, the people of the country are really familiar with her after performing the sketch "A Day of the Heroic Mother" at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 1989. At that time, Zhao Lirong partnered with Hou Yaowen and successfully showed the people of the whole country a simple heroic mother. Since then, Zhao Lirong has been out of control, and then appeared on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala for 6 consecutive years, performing a number of popular sketches such as "So Packaged", "The Adventure of Part-time Work", "Kung Fu Order" and so on. Among them, many lines such as "spicy chicken silk" and "Sima Guang smashing the cylinder" have become the "mantra" of the common people.
In addition to commenting on dramas and sketches, Zhao Lirong also played the queen of the king in the TV series "Journey to the West" and played the role of Tian Dama in "Cangsheng". In 1991, Zhao Lirong played the "mother" in "New Year", which won the Best Actress Award at the Tokyo International Film Festival and the Chinese Film Government Award. In 1992, she won the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress and the 4th China Academy of Film Performing Arts Award.
Zhao Lirong is amiable, but she is extremely strict about the performance. Her partner, the famous comedian Gong Hanlin, said, "Mama Zhao's seriousness is dozens of times stronger than mine."
Once the performance was scheduled to start at seven o'clock in the evening, and Zhao Lirong put on her makeup at four o'clock. Gong Hanlin asked her, "Mom, it's still early, you can sleep." Zhao Lirong said: "Can't move, the hair is done, can't move." Then for the next three hours, she sat upright, afraid of damaging the character.
Zhao Lirong often said to Gong Hanlin that no matter how famous we are, we are nothing remarkable, we are just different from the work done by others.
The older audience will not forget that at the Spring Festival Gala in 1998, Zhao Lirong, who was over 70 years old, raised her microphone in her last sketch performance and sang the most popular "Titanic" theme song "My Heart Is Still the Same" in English with infinite affection, which won the applause of the audience. However, no one would have thought that this song was the last song she left for the audience.
Zhao Lirong's health has been bad. Zhao An, the director of the Spring Festival Gala, recalled: "In 1995, when Teacher Zhao danced with a bungee at the Spring Festival Gala, he was supported down; when he rehearsed "The Adventure of Part-time Work" in 1996, Zhao Lao's legs were already swollen so that he could not even wear his pants, but she still endured severe pain to finish the show. ”
Zhao Lirong's son Sheng Qian also recalled: "In the tense rehearsal before the Spring Festival in 1998, my mother often said that her chest hurt. 5 days before the Spring Festival, we took her to the hospital for examination, and it turned out that the elderly were in advanced lung cancer. That year, after watching the wonderful performance of the old lady, our whole family couldn't help but cry. ”
At this time, Zhao Lirong was busy rehearsing the program, and the family was afraid that she knew the condition, so they tore off the label on the medicine bottle and told her that it was a cough medicine. In order not to affect the performance, Zhao Lirong carried painkillers with her and insisted on rehearsing the show.
On April 20, 1999, Elder Zhao's condition had become more and more serious, and her family could not hide it, so they told her about her condition. Zhao Lirong was very calm: "I am not afraid of death, as long as I don't let me endure pain." "Throughout the treatment, the hospital's experts have done their best to hope that she will recover soon and take the stage." The doctors gave her radiation therapy, followed by 3 courses of chemotherapy, but it did not improve.
At this time, Zhao Lirong basically said goodbye to the stage, and the pain made her thin and inhuman. In 2000, Zhao Lirong insisted that she be discharged from the hospital and go home to spend a year with her family, perhaps she herself knew that time was running out.
Chinese New Year's Eve night, Zhao Lirong turned on the TV and watched some of the programs of the Spring Festival Literary and Art Gala with great concentration, and tears could not help but fall from her eyes. Persuaded by her family, she reluctantly turned off the TV — perhaps she knew it would be her last meeting with the Spring Festival Gala.
In the last days, Zhao Lirong could not eat, and her weight was only more than 70 pounds, but she had to take various drugs. She made up a "nickname" for all kinds of medicines, and wanted to spray "gasping for breath", so she asked: "What about my 'little jet'?"
But the pain did not spare the old lady. She was often tortured to death by intense pain. She even begged doctors to euthanize her, but was not approved. Once, late at night, the pain made her feel like she couldn't do it, so she put on her birthday coat, closed her eyes, and waited for death to come. When the family found out, they hugged her and cried. But when the pain eased slightly, she in turn comforted the children: "I am an ordinary person, I want to come and go ordinary." Don't bother with organizing after I die. ”
At 9:10 a.m. on July 27, 2000, thousands of people in Beijing spontaneously braved the scorching heat and held flowers to attend Zhao Lirong's memorial service. A great uncle standing in the farewell crowd cried and said, "Teacher Zhao is gone, how reluctant our hearts are, how much joy she has brought to all of us!" As soon as I saw her sketch, what anger and sorrow were gone... Hey, what a nice old man, how to say that you will go away? ”
In the blink of an eye, this old man who left laughter to the world has left us for 21 years. Whenever I see her figure in some programs and hear her Tangshan accent, I always feel that she is still alive, and I am still infecting everyone in life with her humor and optimism...