Joan Chen Biography

Fast Facts

• Birth name Chén Chōng is translated as "charge on
• " Her parents, both physicians, were sent to re-education camps during China's Cultural Revolution
• Was a teen film star in China after being discovered by Jiang Qing, the wife of Chairman Mao Zedong, who sent her to study acting at the Shanghai Film Studio
• Moved to the U
• S
• at age 20, and was discovered (in the parking lot of Lorimar studios) by producer Dino Di Laurentiis, who cast her in the 1986 adventure Tai-Pan
• Breakout role was as the drug-addicted Chinese empress in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1986 epic The Last Emperor
• Biggest TV role was mill owner Josie Packard in Twin Peaks; had guest roles in a number of series in the '80s and '90s, including MacGyver, Miami Vice, Night Stalker and Homicide: Life in the Streets
• Her directorial debut, Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl (1999), an acclaimed drama critical of the cultural revolution, was banned in China