13 Facts About Ruan Lingyu

Ruan Lingyu's father died when she was young, and her mother brought her up working as a housemaid.

In 1926, to help make ends meet, Ruan Lingyu signed up for the prominent Mingxing Film Company.

Ruan Lingyu's first big break came in Spring Dream of an Old Capital, which was a massive hit in China.

Ruan Lingyu had by then gained popularity owing to a string of leading roles, and in 1933 she was voted second runner-up in a poll held by Star Daily for China's "movie queen".

In Little Toys, a film by Sun Yu, Ruan Lingyu played a long-suffering toy-maker.

Later that year, Ruan Lingyu made her penultimate film, New Women, in which she played an educated woman forced to death by an unfeeling society.

At the age of 16, Ruan Lingyu became acquainted with Zhang Damin, whose family her mother worked for.

Ruan Lingyu then began living with Tang Jishan, a tea tycoon.

Ruan Lingyu's suicide note apparently contained a line which says "gossip is a fearful thing", although recent researchers have doubted the note's authenticity as it appears to have been forged by Tang Jishan.

Ruan Lingyu is believed to have been physically abused on the evening that she died.

The earlier suicide notes were first published in Lianhua Pictorial on April 1,1935, in a commemorative issue on Ruan Lingyu's death, supplied by Tang Jishan with whom Ruan Lingyu was cohabiting at the time of her death.

Zhang Damin, who tried to tell his story regarding Ruan Lingyu's suicide, agreed in 1935 to star as himself in a film titled Tears of Love.

Ruan Lingyu's name was discussed throughout the HK TVB series - The 'W' Files in 2003; however, there was no character portrayal.