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Michelle YeohHong Kong actress and dancer.
Date of Birth: 06.08.1962
Country:  Hong Kong |
Content:
- Biography of Michelle Yeoh
- Early Life and Education
- Early Career
- Rise to Fame
- Later Career and Personal Life
Biography of Michelle Yeoh
Michelle Yeoh, a Hong Kong actress and dancer, was born on August 6, 1962, in Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia. She comes from an ethnic Chinese family, but has been a resident of Hong Kong for most of her life.
Early Life and Education
Yeoh was a very athletic child and had a passionate interest in dance. At the age of four, she began studying ballet and continued her training at the London Royal Academy of Dance after moving to London with her parents at the age of fifteen. However, a spinal injury ended her dream of becoming a prima ballerina and she shifted her focus to choreography and other forms of art. She graduated from the London Royal Academy of Dance with a Bachelor of Arts degree, specializing in choreography and dramaturgy.
Early Career
In 1983, Yeoh won the Miss Malaysia beauty pageant and appeared in a television commercial alongside Jackie Chan, which caught the attention of the film production company D&B Films. She represented Malaysia in the Miss World 1983 pageant in London. Her career in Hong Kong started with several commercials for Charles Jourdan before she was offered a contract to star in the film "The Owl vs Bombo" (1984). Yeoh's husband at the time, Dickson Poon, was managing the D&B group, which was promoting the Charles Jourdan brand in Hong Kong.
Rise to Fame
Yeoh's career took off with her roles in action films and martial arts movies such as "The Heroic Trio" (1993) and Yuen Woo-ping's "Wing Chun" and "Tai Chi Master" (both in 1994). Interestingly, Yeoh never formally trained in martial arts. Instead, she relied on her dance background and the guidance of instructors on set to perform the various stunts and fight sequences in her films.
She made her Hollywood debut as Wai Lin in the James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997) and gained further international recognition for her role in Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000). She was also offered the role of Seraph in the second and third installments of "The Matrix" trilogy, but had to turn it down due to scheduling conflicts. The character was then rewritten as a male role and played by Collin Chou.
Later Career and Personal Life
In 2002, Yeoh directed her first English-language film, "Touch," produced by her own company, Mythical Films. She continued to work in English-language films, portraying the graceful geisha Mameha in the film adaptation of "Memoirs of a Geisha" (2005) and starring in the action film "Babylon A.D." (2007).
Yeoh was previously married to Hong Kong businessman Dickson Poon from 1988 to 1992. Although they divorced, she maintains a good relationship with him and his second wife, and is the godmother of their daughter. She is currently in a relationship with Jean Todt, the Executive Director of Scuderia Ferrari, the Formula 1 racing team. However, Yeoh has denied rumors of an impending marriage.
Throughout her career, Yeoh has received numerous accolades, including being named one of the most beautiful people in the world by People magazine in 1997. She is considered one of the highest-paid and most popular actresses in Asia. Yeoh is fluent in English, Malay, and Cantonese, but does not read Chinese characters and relies on the pinyin system for pronunciation.
