China's first 'white-haired girl' passes

Lin Bai. [Photo/www.ccnews.dov.cn]

Renowned Chinese film and drama actress Lin Bai died in the early hours of March 4 in Changchun, Northeast China's Jilin province, at the age of 91.

Lin Bai was a famous Chinese actress from the Lu Yi Experimental Troupe whose career spanned much of China's literary history. Since 1938, she first appeared in the drama Luochuan Scar at the Anti-Japanese University. In 1944 for the opera The White-Haired Girl performed in Yanan, she played the lead role of Xi Er, which established her as the first white-hired girl to appear on stage; meanwhile, relying on opera, she reached the peak of her stage career.

In 1953, Lin Bai bid farewell to the stage due to physical conditions. However, it did not quell her love for films and she kept her career moving forward by working as a dubbed film director. Lin directed many classic dubbed films including The Good Soldier Schweik and Laughter in Paradise, and in 1979 she won the Outstanding Dubbed Film awarded from the Ministry of Culture for Charlie Chaplin's film Limelight which helped Chinese audiences discover the American classic. In 1983, she won the same award again for the film Gold Medal.

In her later years, she lived at the Chuangchun Film Studio with her husband Wang Jiayi, another famous director. Many cultural artists and fans are now mourning the death of the great artist in a variety of ways.

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