Faye Wong

Faye Wong (; pinyin: ''Wáng Fēi''; born 8 August 1969) is a Hong Kong singer-songwriter and actress. Early in her career, she briefly used the stage name Shirley Wong (). Born in Beijing, she moved to Hong Kong at the age of 18. She debuted as a singer with the Cantonese album ''Shirley Wong'' in 1989 and achieved her breakthrough with the Cantopop song “Fragile Woman” in 1992. She established herself as a pop diva by combining alternative music with Chinese pop. Since the late 1990s, Wong has recorded mostly in her native Mandarin, with some songs recorded in languages such as English and Japanese.

One of the biggest names in the Chinese-speaking world, Wong has also gained followings in Japan and Southeast Asia. In the West, she is perhaps best known for starring in Wong Kar-wai's films ''Chungking Express'' (1994) and ''2046'' (2004). Upon her second marriage in 2005, she withdrew from the limelight and moved back to Beijing, though she has sporadically returned to the stage. Often titled "diva" or "heavenly queen" in Chinese, Wong has gained a reputation for her "cool" personality. In ''Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture'', Jeroen de Kloet characterised her as "singer, actress, mother, celebrity, royalty, sex symbol and diva all at the same time".

In 2000, Wong was recognised by Guinness World Records as the best selling Cantopop female artist, having sold an estimated 9.7 million copies of her albums by March 2000. In 2009, Wong was voted the second most influential Chinese celebrity of the past 60 years in a poll conducted by the State Council Information Office to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, receiving seven million votes and ranking behind only Teresa Teng. Provided by Wikipedia