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Chen Yumei (1910–1985) was a Chinese film actress and singer active during the 1920s and 1930s. In her heyday she was one of the biggest stars in China, crowned "Movie Queen" in 1934. At the peak of her career she married Runje Shaw (Shao Zuiweng), the boss of Tianyi Film Company, and retired from acting. She was nicknamed the "frugal star" for her efforts at promoting the virtue of frugality. ==Career== Chen Yumei was born in the town of Menghe (孟河) in Changzhou, Jiangsu province in 1910. Her name at birth was Fei Mengmin (费梦敏). Chen made her film debut at age 13, playing a minor role in the film ''Song Bai Yuan'' (松柏缘) made by the film division of the Commercial Press in Shanghai. At age 15 she enrolled at the actress training school of the Laughter Stage, a theatre run by Runje Shaw (Shao Zuiweng), her future husband. In 1926 she joined Tianyi, the film studio recently founded by Shaw, and was selected by Shaw to play the starring role of Qiu Xiang in the film ''The Flirting Scholar'' (唐伯虎点秋香). The film was not a great success, and Chen remained a secondary star of Tianyi after Hu Die (Butterfly Wu) and Wu Suxin (吴素馨).〔 In 1928 Tianyi's star actress Hu Die defected to the Mingxing Film Company, Tianyi's main rival, and Chen Yumei took Hu's place as Tianyi's number one actress. She starred in more than 30 movies made by Tianyi, most notably ''A Girl Named Yunlan'' (芸兰姑娘, 1932), ''Livelihood'' (生机, 1933), and ''The Struggle'' (挣扎, 1933). Many of her roles were of a tragic nature. During an interview, she named ''Livelihood'', a progressive movie banned by the Shanghai Municipal Council, as one of her favourite films.〔 She sang many of the theme songs in her movies, several of which topped the charts, and she released a record by Pathé Records.〔 Chen Yumei was known for extolling the virtue of frugality and was nicknamed the "frugal star". She frequently appeared in public wearing a ''cheongsam'' made of plain cloth, and was once seen smoking a very cheap brand of cigarettes at a high-profile party.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chen Yumei」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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