The film review aggregation website
Rotten Tomatoes ranked her the greatest action heroine of all time in 2008.[6] In 1997, she was chosen by People as one of the "
50 Most Beautiful People in the World",[7] and in 2009 the same magazine listed her as one of the "35 All-Time Screen Beauties".[8] In 2022, Time named her one of the world's 100 most influential people on its
annual listicle and its Icon of the Year.[9][10]
Yeoh was keen on dance from an early age, beginning ballet at age four. She studied at
Main Convent Ipoh, an all-girls secondary school, as a primary student. At age 15, she moved with her parents to the United Kingdom. There, she was enrolled in
The Hammond School, Chester, where she started to train as a ballet dancer.[19][20] However, a spinal injury prevented her from becoming a professional ballet dancer, and she shifted her attention to choreography and other arts.[21] She received a
Bachelor of Arts degree from
Manchester Metropolitan University in 1983.[22]
Career
Early career and first retirement (1983–1991)
In 1983, twenty-year-old Yeoh won the
Miss Malaysia World contest.[23] She was Malaysia's representative at the
Miss World 1983 pageant in London, where she placed eighteenth.[24] Later that year, she traveled to Australia where she won the 1984
Miss Moomba International pageant.[25] Her first acting work was in a television commercial for
Guy Laroche watches with
Jackie Chan.[25] This caught the attention of a fledgling Hong Kong film production company, D&B Films. Although she had a passive understanding of the
Ipoh Cantonese spoken in her hometown, she could not speak it. During a phone call in Cantonese, she was offered to co-star in a television commercial with a Sing Long, and only realized that was Jackie Chan's Cantonese name when she arrived in the studio.[26] She learned to speak Cantonese as she began her career in Hong Kong.[27]
Yeoh began her acting career in action and martial arts films, in which she performed her own stunts.[28] Yeoh's first lead role came in her third film, Yes, Madam (1985).[21][29] Yeoh initially used the pseudonym Michelle Khan, a stage name selected by D&B Films for its potential appeal to international and Western audiences. In 1987, Yeoh married her first husband
Dickson Poon, a co-founder of D&B Films, and decided to retire from acting.
Return and establishment as action and martial arts star (1992–2001)
She changed her stage name back to Michelle Yeoh when she started her Hollywood career with Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997.[23] In the 1997
James Bond film, she played
Wai Lin opposite star
Pierce Brosnan. Brosnan was impressed, describing her as a "wonderful actress" who was "serious and committed about her work".[30] He referred to her as a "female James Bond" in reference to her combat abilities. She wanted to perform her own stunts but was prevented because director
Roger Spottiswoode considered it too dangerous. Nevertheless, she performed all of her own fighting scenes.[31][32] In 1997, she played
Soong Ai-ling in the award-winning The Soong Sisters. Yeoh was approached by director
Ang Lee to star as Yu Shu Lien in her first Mandarin-language martial arts film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). She did not speak
Mandarin until the 2000s, and she had to learn the Mandarin lines for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragonphonetically.[33] The film was an international success, and earned Yeoh a
BAFTA 2000 nomination for
Best Actress in a Leading Role.
Career fluctuations (2002–2016)
In 2002, Yeoh produced her first English film, The Touch, through her own production company Mythical Films. In 2004, Yeoh met
Jean Todt, a French motor racing executive, in Shanghai during a publicity event for Ferrari. They became engaged later that same year.[34]
In October 2011, Yeoh was chosen by
Guerlain to be its skincare ambassador.[38] Yeoh's role was to help strengthen the French cosmetics company's relationship with Asia.[39]
Yeoh did not branch out into television until 2015, with her first role playing Mei Foster, wife to the British Ambassador to Thailand, who is secretly a North Korean spy named Li-Na,[40] on the fifth season of the Cinemax/Sky series Strike Back.[41]
Supporting roles (2017–2020)
In 2016, Yeoh was cast as
Starfleet Captain Philippa Georgiou of the starship USS Shenzhou in the series Star Trek: Discovery, and recurs as Georgiou's "
mirror" doppelganger later in the show.[42][43] Yeoh went on to play the role for three seasons, garnering critical acclaim and becoming a fan favorite. Following the success of Star Trek: Discovery, a spinoff series with Yeoh in the leading role, was commissioned in 2019.[44] The series, which would center on Yeoh's character,
Emperor Georgiou working as a member of
Section 31, a secret intergalactic spy organisation, was still "in development" as of January 2023,[45] but in April, Paramount+ announced it had ordered a Star Trek: Section 31 feature film starring Yeoh, rather than a series.[46]
Michelle Yeoh devotes a large part of her time to charitable and social endeavors, including disaster relief,
HIV/AIDS,
poverty reduction, animal conservation,
gender equality, and
road safety. She has been an ambassador and leading campaigner for
FIA's
Make Roads Safe campaign to be recognized as a global public health and development priority since 2008.[74] Among many activities on behalf of the campaign, she promoted safer road design at the events around the world, spoke at the
United Nations General Assembly,[75]Asia Development Bank,[76]World Bank,[77] walked to promote traffic safety at the
Formula One race,[78] and launched the Call for a Decade of Action for Road Safety at an event in
Vietnam organized by the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation.[79] She also filmed a documentary on global road safety, Turning Point, a version of which was shown on
BBC World News.[80]
Devoted to an array of conservation issues, Michelle Yeoh has donated her time as a
WildAid ambassador for endangered animals and is a
goodwill ambassador for the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for the Sustainable Development Goals initiative since 2016.[81][82] Yeoh is a patron of the
Save China's Tigers project committed to protecting the endangered
South China tiger.[83] She also joined UNDP’s first-ever animal ambassadors, two panda cubs, to kick off the Pandas for the Global Goals campaign.[84] Didn't stop there, in order to raise awareness about wildlife conservation and climate change, she collaborated with
National Geographic to produce the documentary Among the Great Apes with Michelle Yeoh,[85] while emphasizing the importance of responsible consumerism, sustainable fashion, and ethical business practices.[86] In 2013, she changed to the role of executive producer for the project Pad Yatra: A Green Odyssey. The film recorded a journey of 700 people, led by the
12th Gyalwang Drukpa, to the perilous
Himalayan mountain range. They traveled 450 miles, planted 50.000 trees, and educated the villagers on environmental responsibility.[87]
Yeoh's activism extends to health and well-being issues, ranging from patrons to ambassadors, through organizations including AIDS Concern,[88]Hong Kong Cancer Fund,[89]amfAR,[90] Live To Love,[91] and
Paris Brain Institute.[92] She also joined
UNAIDS's commissioner team,[93] and serves on the board of directors of the Suu Foundation, a non-political charity established to support the health, education, human rights, and development of the people of
Myanmar.[94] As one of the survivors of
the 2015 Nepal earthquake,[95] after evacuation, she returned to the disaster-hit country to help rehabilitate affected people and donate 100.000 euros for victims.[96][97]
Throughout her career, Yeoh has always portrayed strong roles and defiant in working against
stereotypes. After Tomorrow Never Dies, she didn’t work for almost two years due to all the stereotypical roles offered to her in America.[98] She told People: "At that point (1990s), people in the industry couldn’t really tell the difference between whether I was Chinese, Japanese, Korean or if I even spoke English. They would talk very loudly and very slowly".[99] She has long spoken out about racism in Hollywood, typically in her awards acceptance speech at the
Golden Globes.[100] The day after her history-making Oscar win, she published an opinion essay in The New York Times calling for true gender equality.[101]
Personal life
Yeoh was married to Hong Kong entrepreneur
Dickson Poon, known for his ownership of businesses such as
Harvey Nichols and
Charles Jourdan, from 1988 to 1992.[102] From 1998 to 2000, Yeoh dated and was eventually engaged to Alan Heldman, an American cardiologist.[103]
In 2004, she started dating
Jean Todt,[104] then the general manager and CEO of
Scuderia Ferrari and later the president of the
FIA.[105] On 26 July 2004, the couple got engaged.[106] As of 2019, she lives in
Geneva, Switzerland, with Todt.[107] In an Instagram post, former Scuderia Ferrari driver
Felipe Massa said that Yeoh and Todt were married on 27 July 2023 in Geneva.[108][109]
Yeoh does not have any children,[110] and has cited her inability to have children as the reason for ending her first marriage.[111]
In 1999, she was a member of the jury at the
49th Berlin International Film Festival.[116] On 19 April 2001, Yeoh was awarded the Darjah Datuk Paduka Mahkota Perak (
DPMP), which carries the title
Dato', by Sultan
Azlan Shah, the
Sultan of
Perak, her home state, in recognition of the fame she brought to the state.[117] On 25 November 2002, Yeoh was honored as The Outstanding Young People of the World (TOYP) (Cultural Achievement) by JCI (
Junior Chamber International).[118] On 23 April 2007, French President
Jacques Chirac conferred upon Yeoh the title of Knight of the
Legion of Honor (French: Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur). The decoration was presented to her in a ceremony in
Kuala Lumpur on 3 October 2007.[119][120] She was promoted to Officer of the same French order (Officier de la Légion d'honneur) by French President
Nicolas Sarkozy on 14 March 2012 at a ceremony held at the president's residence, the
Élysée Palace, on that day,[121][122] and promoted to Commander (Commandeur), the highest honour available to non-French citizens, by
François Hollande at the official residence of the French ambassador in
Kuala Lumpur in 2017.[123]
^
abThe term "Asian" used according to contemporary American parlance described at
Asian people § United States is a race. Furthermore, the term "Asian" in America is often synonymous with people of
East Asian ancestry.[4][5] Actresses from other parts of Continental Asia or of Continental Asian origin have won the award but are not considered "Asian" by American usage.
^Kleeman, Alexandra (15 March 2022).
"Michelle Yeoh's Quantum Leaps". The New York Times Magazine.
Archived from the original on 16 December 2022. Retrieved 16 December 2022.
^
abcKee Hua Chee (19 January 2004).
"Her own person". The Star. Malaysia. Archived from
the original on 30 October 2012. Retrieved 13 November 2011. Interview.
^鲁豫 (host) (6 October 2010).
"杨紫琼-私家趣闻录". 爱传万家·说出你的故事. 24:00–25:30 minutes in. 安徽卫视.
Archived from the original on 19 February 2023. Retrieved 19 February 2023. Also appear as 鲁豫 (host) (11 October 2010).
"杨紫琼-私家趣闻录". 鲁豫有约. 24:00–25:30 minutes in. 凤凰卫视中文台.
Archived from the original on 19 February 2023. Retrieved 19 February 2023.
Kho Tong Guan: "Yeoh Chu Kheng, Michelle". In: Leo Sury, Southeast Asian Personalities of Chinese Descent: A Biographical Dictionary. Chinese Heritage Center, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2012,
ISBN9789814345217, pp. 1347–1350
Ken E. Hall: "Michelle Yeoh". In: Garry Bettinson: Directory of World Cinema: CHINA 2. Intellect Books, 2015
ISBN9781783204007, pp. 71–73
Lisa Funnell: Warrior Women: Gender, Race, and the Transnational Chinese Action Star. Suny Press, 2014,
ISBN9781438452494, pp. 31–57 (chapter "Transnational Chinese Mothers: The Heroic Identities of Michelle Yeoh and Pei Pei Cheng")
Rikke Schubart: Super Bitches and Action Babes: The Female Hero in Popular Cinema, 1970–2006. McFarland, 2012
ISBN9780786482849, pp. 123–143 (chapter "Beautiful Vase Made of Iron and Steel Michelle Yeoh")
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to
Michelle Yeoh.