Early life Zhang was born Zhang Ashan () in
Panyu County, Guangdong (now part of
Guangzhou) in 1904 or 1905. She was orphaned at a young age and lived with an adoptive mother. She moved to Shanghai in her youth, where she completed several years of schooling. However, due to a lack of funds she dropped out in her junior secondary years.
Film career In 1923, Zhang responded to an advertisement from the seeking interested women to act in its films. More than ten thousand women submitted their photograph. Initially, Zhang's portrait was not included in the pictures reviewed by Greater China. It was later found that ten photographs, including Zhang's, had been taken by a journalist with the Shanghai-based newspaper
Shen Baowhose mailbox the company had used after he deemed them the most beautiful. Zhang was selected from these recovered pictures for the company's upcoming productions, and the theft of her portrait was used to generate hype. Zhang spent two years with Greater China, completing such films as
The Human Heart and
Valour in War. Zhang signed with the
Mingxing Film Company in 1925, making her first appearance in
A Sincerely Pitiful Girl. Over the next three years she made seven films for the company, including
Lonely Orchid (1926), in which she portrayed the dual role of a lovelorn young woman and the servant whose death is mistaken for hers. The film was one of the most successful Chinese films of the
silent era, pulling in a reported 132,300
yuan (equivalent to ¥ in 2019) in Shanghai alone. Between August and September 1926,
Shen Bao held a reader's choice award for favourite actress; Zhang won the poll, receiving 2,146 ballots and being crowned the newspaper's "movie queen". After completing
Fallen Plum Blossoms for Mingxing, Zhang left the company for its rival
Minxin. For her role in
Pure as Ice, she gained audience recognition as a tragedy performer, with the magazine
Movie Life () comparing her to
Lillian Gish.
Later life and career In the mid-1920s, Zhang moved in with
Bu Wancang, a cinematographer and director. As Zhang became more famous, the two began to fight, and Zhangunder pressure from her adoptive mother to find a wealthier manleft him by 1927. She later began dating , a tea merchant, leaving the film industry to spend time with him in the United States. However, the couple separated after Tang began romancing fellow actress
Ruan Lingyu. An agreement that Tang would provide her with financial support in case of a separation went unhonoured. Zhang was asked by
Zhang Shichuan to return to Mingxing for
Lovelorn in 1933. Intended to tell her life's story, the
sound film suffered because of Zhang's poor command of
Mandarinthe language of dialogueand was received negatively. She appeared in several further films, including 1935's
Fan of Peach Blossoms and 1937's
Cantonese-language Proud Daughter of Heaven. She spent time in
Hankou, toured Southeast Asia, and lived briefly in
Tianjin and
Beijing. She ultimately settled in
British Hong Kong in the 1950s with her husband Zhang Shuping. Zhang made her final film appearance, a cameo as a beauty pageant panellist alongside
Yang Naimei and
Wu Suxin, in 1953's
Heavenly Beauty. She died in Hong Kong on 2 November 1963, though some articles have incorrectly reported her as having died homeless in the mid-1970s after spending the last decade of her life living on the streets under her childhood name. She has received less coverage than contemporary actresses such as Ruan Lingyu and
Hu Die. ==Filmography==