Kenneth Tsang obit

Kenneth Tsang, Veteran Hong Kong Actor, Dies at 87

Mr. Tsang, who was known for tough-guy supporting roles and ubiquitous hair dye advertisements, was found dead while in hotel quarantine. 

He was not on the list.

Hong Kong veteran actor Kenneth Tsang was found dead in a quarantine hotel at age 87 on Wednesday (April 27).

Here are 10 things to know about Tsang.

1. Tsang was born Tsang Koon Yat in Shanghai on Oct 5, 1934 and moved with his family to Hong Kong in 1949.

He was the elder brother of actress Jeanette Lin Tsui, who died after an asthma attack at age 60 in 1995.

He was also the uncle of singer Linda Wong, 53, and former singer-actor Christopher Chan, 61.

2. Tsang made his film debut due to his sister Lin, who was already a film star in the early 1950s.

He was spotted by director Doe Ching while visiting his sister on a film set, who then cast him in the movie The Feud (1955) with actress Lucilla You Min.

3. Tsang then left for the United States to study architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. He returned to Hong Kong in the early 1960s and was an architect for three years, but found that the job mundane and rejoined the entertainment industry.

He starred in the movie The Big Circus (1964) with actresses Landi Chang and Helen Li Mei, and which was directed by his then brother-in-law Chun Kim.

4. He went on to act in more than 200 TV serials and movies in his career, including more than 100 Cantonese movies in the 1960s and 1970s.

He starred with actress Suet Nay several times in swordfighting films such as Paragon Of Sword And Knife (1967), The Mighty Palm (1968) and The Twin Swords (1969).

5. Tsang joined broadcaster TVB in 1981 and rose to fame playing eccentric pugilist Huang Yaoshi in TV series Legend Of The Condor Heroes (1983), an adaptation of late writer Louis Cha's martial arts novel.

Another memorable role was that of a corrupt police officer in the TV series The Greed Of Man (1992).

Many Hong Kongers also remember his advertisement for Bigen hair dye in the 1980s.

6. Tsang has also acted in Singapore in TV serials such as The Teochew Family (1995), The Unbeatables II (1996), The New Adventures Of Wisely (1998) and Riding The Storm (1998).

He sparked a controversy in Singapore in 1995 when he said "Singapore actors are stupid" in an interview with a local weekly entertainment magazine. He later apologised for his remarks.

7. His command of English also saw him venturing into Hollywood, acting in movies such as The Replacement Killers (1998) and Anna And The King (1999), both starring Hong Kong actor Chow Yun Fat, Rush Hour 2 (2001) starring action star Jackie Chan, and Memoirs Of A Geisha (2005), with actresses Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh.

8. Tsang was nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2012 for his role as the antagonist Tony Wong in surveillance thriller Overheard 2 (2011), but lost out to another veteran actor, Lo Hoi Pang, for his role in the movie Life Without Principle (2011).

Tsang subsequently won Best Supporting Actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2015 for his role as the rural strongman Uncle To in Overheard 3 (2014).

9. Tsang was in the news in Hong Kong in 2015 after fellow veteran actor Patrick Tse accused him of faking illness while filming the travelling programme Four Amigos Bon Voyage and slapped him at a press conference while promoting the show which also starred veteran actors Bowie Wu and Joe Junior.

Tsang and Tse claimed later that the slapping incident was staged.

10. Tsang was married thrice. His first wife was Landi Chang, his co-star in The Big Circus. They tied the knot in 1969 but divorced 10 years later. They have a son. Chang died at age 50 in 1991.

The actor married columnist and model Barbara Tang in 1980 and they have a daughter. They divorced 10 years later.

He married veteran actress Lisa Chiao Chiao, now 79, in 1994 in Singapore. They have no children together.

Tsang's film debut was in the movie The Feud (1955) when he was 21 , which was followed by a role in Who Isn't Romantic? (1956). In the mid-1960s, Tsang starred in detective films and classic kung fu movies with Hong Kong teen idols Connie Chan Po-chu and Josephine Siao. Tsang also appeared in a few Wong Fei-Hung movies in the late 1960s.

In 1986, Tsang worked as taxi cab owner, Ken, in John Woo's A Better Tomorrow. Subsequent collaborations with Woo included the role of Ken in A Better Tomorrow 2 in 1987, police officer Danny Lee's murdered partner in The Killer in 1989, and the strict adoptive father of Chow Yun-fat, Leslie Cheung and Cherie Chung in Once a Thief in 1991.

Tsang also filmed several Singaporean Chinese dramas during the 1990s, notably the 1995 epic The Teochew Family and The Unbeatables II in 1996.

Up to this point, Tsang had played roles in mainly Hong Kong movies. His first Hollywood film was The Replacement Killers (1998), also the Hollywood debut of co-star Chow Yun-fat. Tsang appeared alongside Chow once again in Anna and the King as well as Jackie Chan in Rush Hour 2. Tsang played General Moon in the James Bond film Die Another Day (2002), and he continued to appear in films from Hong Kong.