Leslie Cheung's bio

Childhood and education

Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing was born in Kowloon, Hong Kong. His birth name was Cheung Fat-chung (張發宗), which was later changed to Cheung Kwok-Wing. Cheung was the youngest of ten children in a middle-class Hakka family. Cheung Wut Hoi, his father, was a fairly well-known tailor, whose customers included the American actors William Holden and Cary Grant.[9][10][11] His parents divorced when he was quite young. While in Hong Kong, Cheung attended Rosaryhill School (Stubbs Road, Hong Kong).

At the age of 13, he was sent to England as a boarder at Eccles Hall School and faced racial discrimination at the school. He worked as a bartender at his relatives' restaurant and sang during the weekends. It was around this period that he chose his name, "Leslie". According to Cheung, he chose this name because "I love the film Gone with the Wind. And I like Leslie Howard. The name can be a man's or woman's, it's very unisex, so I like it."[12]

In several of his interviews, Cheung stated that he had a fairly unhappy childhood. "I didn't have a happy childhood. Arguments, fights and we didn't live together; I was brought up by my granny."[12] "What I would say most affected me as a child, was that my parents were not at home with me. As a young kid, one could not always understand why his parents weren't at home. This made me depressed sometimes."[13]

Cheung attended the University of Leeds in northern England, where he studied textile management. He dropped out of university at the end of his first year, when his father fell ill. After his father's recovery, Cheung did not return to England to complete his studies.[14][15]

Leslie later died of suicide on April Fool's, 2003. close