FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE STAR COMMITS SUICIDE
HONG KONG — Actor and pop singer Leslie Cheung, who commits suicide in the Oscar-nominated Farewell My Concubine, died from a suicide leap from the 24th floor of the Mandarin Oriental - a five-star Hong Kong hotel - on April 1. He was 46.
Cheung, notable for being one of only a few Asian stars to play gay characters, came out about his own sexuality after playing one of his most famous gay roles in the acclaimed 1997 movie Happy Together, directed by director Wong Kar-wai.
Born Jeung Gwok-Wing (Cantonese) in Hong Kong on September 12, 1956, Cheung was the youngest of ten children. Influenced early on by both the film world, as his father was actor William Holden's tailor, and his parents' divorce, Cheung went on to study at England's Leeds University. After returning to Hong Kong, he jump-started his career by winning second prize in the 1976 ATV Second Asian Song Contest.
In 1981, Cheung became a bona fide star with the success of his album The Wind Blows On, which established him as Asia's most popular singer. His status as a pop singer led the way to work on television, film and the stage.
He appeared in Patrick Tam's Nomad (1982), but it was not until 1986 that Cheung's film career really gained momentum, thanks to his casting as a rookie cop opposite Chow Yun-Fat in John Woo's popular gangster film A Better Tomorrow. The film's success enabled Cheung to branch out and in 1988, the same year he starred in the sequel to A Better Tomorrow, he played the opium-smoking playboy lead in Stanley Kwan's Rouge (1988) - a romantic ghost story that oscillates between the Hong Kong of the 1930s and that of 1987. Rouge was one of the most widely acclaimed films to come out of Hong Kong during the 1980s and helped to establish Cheung as a romantic leading man as well as an action star.
In 1990, Cheung decided to wrap up his career as a recording artist and immigrate to Canada. The makers of Farewell My Concubine, however, persuaded him to stay on a bit longer and take the role of Cheng Dieyi. To prepare for the role, he spent time training in the movements and gestures of the Peking Opera and learning to speak the Peking dialect, no easy task for one whose mother tongue is Cantonese.
Cheung's other film credits include Wong Kar-wai's Days of Being Wild (1990), Ashes of Time (1994) and Peter Chan's He's A Woman, She's A Man (1994).
Hundreds of grieving fans - many from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China - braved the rain and gathered outside a funeral parlor in Hong Kong to pay their last respects on April 8. As the flowers and wreaths piled up outside the North Point funeral home on eastern Hong Kong Island, many fans openly declared their love for one of the territory's most popular performers. Fans have also laid flowers outside the Mandarin Oriental and his residence in Kowloon, while television stations and radio stations have played his films and hit songs.
AWARD-WINNING ACTOR
MICHAEL JETER DIES
LOS ANGELES, California — Michael Jeter, the Emmy- and Tony-winning actor known to Sesame Street viewers as Mr. Noodle, has died at his Los Angeles home. He was 50.
The openly gay Jeter, who won an Emmy in 1992 for the comedy Evening Shade, and a Tony in 1990 for the musical Grand Hotel, was found dead on Sunday, March 30 by his life partner, Sean Blue, apparently of natural causes.
According to the actor's publicist, Dick Guttman, "Jeter had been ill, but the cause of death had not been determined." Jeter disclosed in a 1997 interview with Entertainment Tonight that he was HIV-positive.
Jeter, whose film credits included Waterworld, Air Bud and Mouse Hunt, had been working on The Polar Express, a movie based on the popular children's book by Chris Van Allsburg. Filming on the project was suspended March 31 out of respect for Jeter's death.
The project reunited Jeter with Tom Hanks. The two had previously acted together in The Green Mile, with Jeter as a condemned murderer who befriended a mouse.
Jeter told the Los Angeles Times newspaper in 1993 that viewers loved Coach Stiles because he was not perfect. "He doesn't have a model's face," said Jeter. "He is not perfect in any sense of the word. Everyone is a Herman on some level."
After Jeter won the Emmy for his performance as assistant coach Herman Stiles in Evening Shade, he went on to earn two more Emmy nominations -- for guest-starring roles on the drama series Picket Fences and Chicago Hope.
In addition to the Tony, his song-and-dance performance in Grand Hotel also brought him an Outer Critics Circle Award, a Drama Desk Award and the Clarence Derwent Prize.
Jeter was born on Aug. 26, 1952, in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. He studied medicine at Memphis State University, where he also became interested in theater. After graduation, he pursued a career on the stage in New York.
He made his film debut in 1979 as Sheldon in Milos Forman's movie version of the Broadway musical Hair. He went on to appear in such movies as Ragtime, The Money Pit, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, The Fisher King and Jurassic Park III.
Jeter's stage credits included Alice, Cloud 9, Greater Tuna, Once in a Lifetime and Waiting for Godot. He joined the cast of Sesame Street in 1998 as the lovable but mistake-prone Mr. Noodle.
In addition to Blue, Jeter is survived by his parents, Dr. William and Virginia Jeter, a brother and four sisters.
Memorial contributions may be directed to AIDS Project Los Angeles, an organization with which Jeter had been active for more than 10 years.
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