Wang Ying ; , Yu Zhihua; during incarceration, Prisoner No. 6742; March 8, 1913 – March 3, 1974) was a Chinese actress in the 1930s. She rose to be a star of plays and cinema. The most valuable Chinese painting was of her. She was the first Chinese actor to appear for the US President. During the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

she was imprisoned. Her reputation was not re established until after her death.

Life

Wang was born in 1913 in

Wuhu Wuhu () is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Anhui province, China. Sitting on the southeast bank of the Yangtze River, Wuhu borders Xuancheng to the southeast, Chizhou and Tongling to the southwest, Hefei city to the northwest, Ma'anshan ...

when her name was Yu Zhihua. She went to live with her aunt whose family name was Wang. This was after her father sold her as a child bride to a man in Nanjing. She had to leave and she went to Shanghai after she was arrested for writing a critical letter to

He Jian He Jian (; 10 April 1887 – 25 April 1956) was a Chinese Nationalist (KMT) general and politician in the Republic of China. He was governor of Hunan province between 1929 and 1937, and Interior Minister from 1937 to 1939. He was best known for ...

.Wang Ying: An Artist to Remember During Anti-Japanese War
18 September 2015, WomenInChina, Retrieved 23 November 2016 In 1929, she joined an art troupe in Shanghai led by Qian Xingcun and

Xia Yan Xia Yan is the name of: *Xia Yan (Ming dynasty) (1482–1548), Ming dynasty politician *Xia Yan (playwright) Xia Yan (; 30 October 1900 – 6 February 1995) was a Chinese playwright and screenwriter, and China's Deputy Minister of Culture bet ...

. The writer

Xie Bingying Xie Bingying (; September 5, 1906 – January 5, 2000), was originally born as Xie Minggang (), and her courtesy name is Fengbao (). She was a Chinese soldier and writer, most well-known for her autobiographies of her life as a soldier in the Nat ...

renamed her Wang Ying and under that name she starred in three films - Women's Cry, Story of Red Tears and The Same Enemy. Her iconic appearance in the play "Put Down Your Whip" was seen throughout China and abroad and it inspired an eponymous painting by

Xu Beihong Xu or XU may refer to: People and characters * Xu (surname), one of two Chinese surnames ( or /), transliterated as Xu in English * ǃXu, a name for the ǃKung group of Bushmen; may also refer to the ǃKung language or the ǃKung people * ǃXu ...

. This was converted into a postcard and the painting in time became the most valuable painting by a Chinese artist. By 1939, the art troupe was now named the New China Troupe and was touring Asia. Wang was also writing a column for a Shanghai newspaper.

United States

Wang left for the United States in 1942 to improve her education. Whilst there, she met President

Franklin Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

and his wife and performed the play '' Put Down Your Whip'' in the White House. She continued to write and her thoughts were published in Chinese American newspapers. She had become a friend of

Pearl S. Buck Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973) was an American writer and novelist. She is best known for ''The Good Earth'' a bestselling novel in the United States in 1931 and 1932 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. In 1938, Buck ...

and she assisted

Agnes Smedley Agnes Smedley (February 23, 1892 – May 6, 1950) was an American journalist, writer, and activist who supported the Indian Independence Movement and the Chinese Communist Revolution. Raised in a poverty-stricken miner's family in Missouri and Co ...

in writing her book about

Zhu De Zhu De (; ; also Chu Teh; 1 December 1886 – 6 July 1976) was a Chinese general, military strategist, politician and revolutionary in the Chinese Communist Party. Born into poverty in 1886 in Sichuan, he was adopted by a wealthy uncle at ...

. When Buck wanted to visit China, she found that was unwelcome because she was a friend of Wang Ying's. She was persecuted by Jiang Qing at the time of the

, and died at age 60. During incarceration, she was called Prisoner No. 6742.

Legacy

Wang Ying was politically rehabilitated on July 6, 1979. After her death, two books ''Two Kinds of Americans'' and her autobiography novel ''Bao Gu'', were published. Besides her films, she also appeared in paintings.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wang, Ying 1913 births 1974 deaths Chinese dramatists and playwrights Writers from Anhui Chinese stage actresses People persecuted to death during the Cultural Revolution 20th-century Chinese actresses Actresses from Anhui People from Wuhu Singers from Anhui 20th-century Chinese dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Chinese women singers Chinese film actresses 20th-century novelists Chinese women novelists 20th-century Chinese women writers