Director

Leslie Cheung

Acting

Career Snapshot

Explained

These indicators come from TMDB. They are relative signals, not review ratings.

Directed credits

Emerging

Beginning to build directing work.

TMDB popularity

2.6

Moderate attention

TMDB internal trend index. Higher usually means more searches and page activity now.

Directed movies: 2Directed series: 0All crew credits: 24

TMDB ID: 69637

IMDb ID: nm0002000

Known for: Acting

Born: September 12, 1956

Died: April 1, 2003

Age: 46

Place of birth: Hong Kong, British Crown Colony

Gender: Male

Adult content flag: No

Career span: 1978 - 2023

Years active: 46

Average TMDB rating: 6.68

Wikidata: Q313596

Also known as

Zhāng Guóróng • Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing • Cheung Kwok-Wing • 張國榮 • 张国荣 • Kwok-wing Cheung • Lesile K.W. Cheung • Guorong Zhang • 장국영 • Trương Quốc Vinh • +4 more

Frequent jobs

Director (2)Theme Song Performance (16)Songs (4)Writer (2)

TMDB TMDB IMDb IMDb W Wikidata

Biography

Cheung Kwok-Wing (Chinese: 張國榮, English name: Leslie, September 12, 1956 – April 1, 2003) was a Hong Kong Canadian singer and actor. Born in Hong Kong, Leslie Cheung moved to the United Kingdom in 1971, settling in Leeds, where he enrolled at university to study fashion design. After completing his studies, he returned to Hong Kong and, in 1977, took part in an amateur singing competition—the ATV Asian Music Contest—where he won second prize. The following year, he released his first album, I Like Dreaming. He soon began appearing on television and quickly landed his first film role in Erotic Dreams of the Red Chamber (1978), an erotic production that Cheung himself later described as a “shameful disaster.” Throughout a 26-year career from 1977 until his death, Cheung released over 40 music albums and acted in 56 films. He was one of the most prominent pioneers that shaped the identity of Cantopop during the 1980s. His studio albums Summer Romance (1987) and Most Beloved (1995) each sold over 300,000 copies and are among the best-selling albums of all time in the territory. In addition to music, Cheung achieved pan-Asian fame with such films as A Better Tomorrow (1986) and A Chinese Ghost Story (1987). He won the Best Actor at the 1991 Hong Kong Film Awards for his role in Days of Being Wild (1990). His venture into acting in the 1990s was recognized for his portrayal of queer characters in the then-conservative film industry, he was one of the few Hong Kong actors willing to take on gay roles—such as in Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together—or to play a cross-dressing opera performer in Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1993. Leslie Cheung died by suicide on April 1, 2003, at the age of 46, by jumping from the 24th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong. In the note he left behind, he stated that he had been suffering from depression.