Shangguan Yunzhu

Shangguan Yunzhu was born Wei Junluo (韋均犖) on March 2, 1920, in Jiangyin, Jiangsu, China. Her father had studied in Japan, and her mother was from Suzhou. She fled to Shanghai when her hometown was attacked by the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War. In Shanghai she became a drama and film actress, and her career took off after the end of the war. She starred in several prominent leftist films such as Spring River Flows East, Crows and Sparrows, and Women Side by Side. After the Communist victory in mainland China in 1949, her career was set back when her husband was embroiled in the anti-capitalist Five-anti Campaign, but she later portrayed a wide variety of characters in many films. Shangguan was married three times and had three children, but all her marriages ended in divorce. She was said to have had an affair with Mao Zedong, for which she was severely persecuted by the followers of Mao's wife Jiang Qing during the Cultural Revolution, leading to her suicide in November 1968.