Nowadays, few people know about the Republican actress Chen Lu. one day in June 2019, I got together with Chen Lu’s son, Wang Tailai, in Flushing, New York, and had an interview with him. Why did I focus on the Republican actress Chen Lu? Because during the Cultural Revolution, Chen Lu and my mother worked together in a street factory in Wuhan, and as a child I used to go to the factory to play.
My mother’s small factory was not far from my Home, and it was only a quarter of an hour’s walk. The small factory produced rubber bands for cars. I often saw my mother’s co-workers lethargically tightening the bolts on the machines, under which was a red-hot furnace that emitted unpleasant gases. My mother’s colleagues were older and were said to be cattle and snakes, including the secret agent Lao Liu, who was said to have captured a high-ranking Communist official disguised as a small trader before liberation. Old Liu was a big smoker, smoking one cigarette after another. There was also a large woman who had been a prostitute. Despite her unattractive appearance, she was a very warm person. The most famous one inside is Chen Lu, who was once a popular actress on the Shanghai Bund. Chen Lu has the typical characteristics of a Wuhan woman, hot and cheerful. During the Cultural Revolution. I still remember the scene when Chen Lu was criticized in the People’s Theatre. At that Time, she slapped herself severely and tearfully reviewed her crimes. At that time, I did not understand what crime she had committed.
After the Cultural Revolution, what reminded me of Chen Lu was the showing of the old movie “Angel on the Road”. Chen Lu played a role in the movie. Chen Lu also gradually aroused my curiosity, and through my mother’s memory and the collection of information, Chen Lu’s image began to become clear. Chen Lu, formerly known as Chen Li Zhen, was born in 1920 and attended Hankow First Girls’ High School. Chen Lu had three marriages in her Life. At the age of sixteen, Chen Lu was attracted to a wealthy Family of the surname of Chen in Wuhan. However, she pursued freedom of Marriage, and after the outbreak of the anti-Japanese war, she left home and abandoned school at the age of seventeen to join the Sichuan Brigade Theatre Company in Wuhan and join the anti-Japanese movement to save the country. Later, she was introduced by the movie star Zhao Dan and met Tang Na, one of the “three great pens” (Tian Han, Tang Na and Ouyang Yuqian) in the movie and theater industry. At that time, Tang Na had just divorced Lan Ping (Jiang Qing) and was in a period of emotional pain.
On May 1, 1940, Tang and Chen Lu’s son was born. He gave his son the name “Hong’er”, which was derived from his stage name “Hongye” for Chen Lu.
With Donna’s help, Chen Lu performed in productions such as “Scenes of chaos“, “Heaven’s Net”, “Thunderstorm” and “Sunrise”, and soon became popular in the Shanghai theater scene at that time. Because of her dark skin, the audience called her the “Black Beauty Star” back then. She once co-starred in the play “Wen Tianxiang” with Liu Qiong, China’s No. 1 young actress, at the Blue Heart Theatre, which filled the audience for several months and became a sensation on the Shanghai Bund.
Later, Donna broke up with Chen Lu and went to Chongqing to develop his career. There, he fell in love with actress Kang Jian. Kang Jian, formerly known as Zhang Xiang Pu, had played the girl next door in Master Shen Xi’s famous film “Cross Street”. Donner’s marriage to Kang Jian lasted only until the victory of the war. Chen Lu also married Wang Xing Yao, a salt merchant.
In August 1947, Tang Na met Chen Runqiong, a female reporter for the Tribune Libre, at a press conference and fell in love with her. Chen Runqiong was the daughter of the then Minister of the Republic of China in France. In order to pursue Chen Runqiong, Donner went from Hong Kong to the United States and then to France, where he eventually united with Chen Runqiong and settled in France.
Before Tang Na left the country, he begged Chen Lu in order to get his son Hong Er back, but he was sternly refused. Later, Chen Lu often said with regret, “I should have given Hong’er to his father to take abroad!”
Chen Lu has been married three times and has four sons. The eldest, Chen Junhong, nicknamed “Rong’er,” was born to a rich family; the second was named “Ma Junshi. The second was named “Ma Junshi” (originally “Ma Jiliang” by Tang Na), later changed to Chen Xiaolu, nicknamed “Hong’er”, born to Tang Na; the third and fourth were born to Wang Xingyao, named Wang Tailai, nicknamed “Baby” and Wang Tereng, nicknamed “Rong Rong”.
Chen Lu had a violent temper and often quarreled with Wang Xingyao. Her “soprano” voice was bound to bring many neighbors to watch. At this time, her mouth is shouting, but her hands are not idle. Most of the time, she opened her suitcase and threw Wang’s clothes out quickly, saying that she wanted to “separate” the family. When Wang Xingyao ran away, she wouldn’t let up, pointing at her back and shouting, “Wait, I’m going to divorce you tomorrow. . But by the next day, she forgot all about the events of the first day again.
After 1949, some famous actors in Shanghai were hired from the “Shanghai Theatre and Film Association” (the predecessor of the “Shanghai Film Studio”) to work at the South Central Team Art Institute in Hankow. In addition to Chen Lu, there were Xu Feng, Murong Wan’er, Wan Qing (Mrs. Han Fei) and others. The director of the Academy was Ding Yi, the author of the opera “White Maiden”.
The vast majority of the academy were military literary and artistic workers, and they lived on a supply system. Chen Lu, a performer from Shanghai, was on a salary system, because their salary was high and the canteen was dedicated to their ‘small stove’. Chen Lu often proudly said, “We, the people, are the real backbone of the play.”
Unfortunately, the good times did not last long, and this situation was soon broken. The Art Institute later did not want non-troop personnel. The salaried actors were sacked and assigned to the major film studios across the country. At that time, Chen Lu wanted to return to Shanghai Film Studio, but did not get her wish, and was told to go to Pearl River Film Studio.
Chen Lu and Wang Xingyao went to Shanghai because they had lived there for many years. Wang Xing Yao was denounced for having joined the Kuomintang’s Three Youths League in her early years and was later imprisoned, eventually dying in Shanghai’s Tilanqiao Prison. Chen Lu, who was born alone, had to return to her hometown of Wuhan with her children.
Later, she was assigned to work in the small street factory where my mother worked. When Chen Lu learned that Jiang Qing was Lan Ping, she was surprised. She often joked privately, “If I had gone to Yan’an and Lumbing had stayed in Shanghai. Then Mao Zedong would definitely have taken a fancy to me. After all, I’m prettier than Lumbing.” If that were the case, would you have to bow to me respectfully and call me Madam Chairman when you see me again? Haha”, “Apple Blue is a few years older than me, just lucky. Back then, in terms of acting skills, looks and fame, which point was she better than me?”
“During the Cultural Revolution, Chen Lu’s experience, words and deeds were reported by Chen Wen, a colleague in the street factory, and Chen Lu was branded as an “active counter-revolutionary” for “attacking the head of the Central Committee” – Jiang Qing. Later, Chen Lu was “decentralized” to the rural areas of Xiangfan, Hubei for 10 years. In 1978, after the smashing of the Gang of Four, Chen Lu and her children returned to Wuhan from the Xiangfan countryside.
Donner returned to China twice, in 1978 and 1985, one of the purposes of which was to find out the whereabouts of Chen Lu and his son Hong’er. In Shanghai, he asked many old friends, none of whom knew where Hong’er was at that time, and in 1985, when Hong’er arrived in Shanghai overnight to learn of his whereabouts, he had already returned to France. Donner’s nominal identity in France was that of a hotel owner, but his real identity was that of a senior intelligence officer for the Chinese Ministry of Security.
In 1988, Donner died of lung cancer in France at the age of 74, and in May 1991, the popular Jiang Qing committed suicide in prison at the age of 77.
Wang Tailai told me that after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Chen Lu, who was nearly 60 years old, and her children returned to Wuhan to live. In 2000, Chen Lu died at the age of 78, after a life of sorrow and happiness.
Chen Lu’s son, Wang Tailai, left China for the United States the following year. He currently lives in the United States with his half-sister, Taiwen Wang. Chen Lu and Donna’s son, Hong’er, has passed away.
The past is like smoke. Chen Lu had the opportunity to leave China for Taiwan in 1949, but she couldn’t give up her comfortable Shanghai house and life, and her life fell from peak to trough, from wealthy to penniless. Her husband, Wang Xing Yao, with whom she was deeply attached, died tragically in prison. Chen Lu’s life has gone through a trilogy of heaven, hell and earth. I believe that in the silent nights of Wuhan, the shadows of her past life will appear in Chen Lu’s memory unexpectedly, and such “memories” will soon flow away from her fingers like sand in her hands. 1949 was a life choice of leaving or not leaving, but it was a life-and-death robbery with a broken heart.
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