Angela Mao

Angela Mao was born as Mao Ching Ying in 1950 as the third of eight children to a family of entertainers for the Peking Opera House. She had a successful career as a Chinesa Opera actress, where her flexibility and martial arts first developed. She was discovered by film producer Raymond Chow who made her a star. Then, she trained in hapkido, and felt attracted to the new kung fu style, on demand by Hong Kong producers. Her career, if not long, was impressive, as she was one of the first women to make that sort of break-through in the film industry, until then reserving the fights and acrobatics to men. She played Bruce Lee's sister in Enter the Dragon (1973), and she also worked with Jackie Chan several times when he was a newcomer. In 1974, she fell in love and married Kelly Lai Chen. Their daughter Hsi Pui Sze was born in 1976. However, the couple divorced. She retired from films in 1983 and moved to America with her second husband when her son George King was born. She moved to Queens, New York in 1993 and eventually opened several Chinese restaurants that she runs with her son and daughter-in-law: Mama King, Nan Bei Ho, New Mei Hua, Guo Ba Inc. She usually declines interviews, because she wanted to lower her profile for the sake of her marriage. In 2008, she visited China to attend the wedding of her daughter, who had been raised by her first husband. In 2016, she gave a reluctant interview to the "New York Times" while feeding her baby granddaughter in one of her restaurants, with her son and daughter-in-law acting as her translators. She said that she still has fans who show up to her restaurants just to see her, but that fame was never as important as taking care of her family.