Cheng Zhi

Zhi Cheng Zhi was born on February 3 1926 in Wuchang Hubei Two years later he moved to Shanghai with his grandfather tenthranking scholar Grandfather was proficient in poetry calligraphy and seal engraving At the end of the Qing Dynasty he was the supervisor of the Yuelu Academy in Hunan He has more than ten albums and has compiled and published many representative works of the Tan School He was employed as a librarian in the Shanghai Museum of Cultural History in the late 1950s Young Zhi Cheng has loved Peking Opera since he was young He returned to La Jinghu without a teacher at the age of six He broadcasted on the radio at the age of eight and sang Peking opera At the age of eleven he produced the Peking Opera record Yu Guo Yuan After graduating from high school in 1944 Cheng was admitted to the Fudan Department of Economics Because of his passion for acting he participated in a charity fundraising event sponsored by Shen Bao at the time during his studies in Fudan The repertoire for the free performance is Rich Clouds directed by Huang Zuolin On January 1 1945 Cheng Zhi dropped out of school to perform a drama He joined the hard work troupe led by Huang Zuolin and has since embarked on an acting career that he has worked for all his life In 1947 Cheng Zhi entered Mandarin Pictures The first film he participated in was Fake Phoenix in which he played Hairdresser No5 In the film the hairdresser No5 sang a popular song of selfsinging and singing which left a deep impression on the audience impression After succesuful debut Zhi Cheng shot more than a dozen films such as Night Club and Corrosion In 1952 eight private film companies in Shanghai merged to form the Shanghai United Film Studio In 1953 Lianying was incorporated into the Shanghai Film Studio During this period Zhi Cheng has participated in the filming of My Life and Related Directors In the midfifties Cheng Zhi donated airplane cannons to perform Beijing opera Empty City Plan and Capturing Cao etc and recorded the radio programs Peking Opera chanting and cross talk for Taiwan Peoples Broadcasting Station and Fujian Peoples Broadcasting Station To enable the people of Taiwan to understand the motherland and contribute to the exchanges across the Taiwan Straits The Cultural Revolution began in 1966 Zhi Cheng was not spared and the revolutionary masses became objects of revolution overnight In July 1967 he was ordered to stay in the factory to inspect and participate in the socalled study class that is the isolation review in disguise One pass was ten months In May 1968 the class ended In 1969 a large number of people in the film system were decentralized to work in the May 7th cadre school in Fengxian Zhi Cheng was still the censorship object and worked in the cadre school for four years