page_title: Zhou Xuan
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Zhou Xuan / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Zhou Xuan, Chinese actress
context_page_description: Zhou Xuan, also romanized as Chow Hsuan, was an iconic Chinese singer and film actress. By the 1940s, she had become one of China's Seven Great Singing Stars. She was the best known of the seven, nicknamed the "Golden Voice", and had a concurrent movie career until 1954. She recorded more than 200 songs and appeared in over 40 films in her career.
context_section_description: In 1932, Zhou began acting as a member of Li Jinhui's Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe. When she was twelve, she won second prize in a singing contest in Shanghai and was given the nickname "Golden Voice" (金嗓子) for her effortless high-pitched melodies.
  Zhou began her film career in 1935, and she achieved stardom in 1937 when director Yuan Muzhi cast her as one of the leads as a singing girl in Street Angel.  Zhou rapidly became the most famous and marketable popular singer in the gramophone era up to her death, singing many famous tunes from her own movies.
  Between 1946 and 1950, she often went to Hong Kong to make films such as "All-Consuming Love" (長相思), "Hua wai liu ying" (花外流鶯), Sorrows of the Forbidden City, and "Rainbow Song" (彩虹曲).  After introducing "Shanghai Nights" (夜上海) in 1949, Zhou returned to Shanghai. She spent the next few years in and out of a mental institutions owing to frequent breakdowns. Through the years, Zhou led a complicated and unhappy life marked by her failed marriages, illegitimate children, and suicide attempts. Zhou's first husband was the composer Yan Hua (嚴華, 1912–1992), who wrote and sometimes also performed songs with her.
  Despite having made a total of 43 movies, her favorite film remained Street Angel. This contained two theme songs: "Four Seasons Song" (四季歌) and "The Wandering Songstress", which enjoyed long-lasting popularity.  Other well-known songs by Zhou Xuan include "When Will You Return?", "Shanghai Nights" (title song from the film of the same name), "Yellow Leaves Dancing in the Autumn Wind" (黃葉舞秋風), "Eternal Smile" (永遠的微笑), "Hundred Flower Song" (百花歌), "Advice" (叮嚀), "Where Can the Soul Mate be Found" (知音何處尋), and "Picking Betel Nuts" (採檳榔).
caption: A hand-coloured photo of Zhou in the 1930s.
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