The Death Of A Famous Actress: Research On Xiao Dangui’s Suicide In 1947

Xiao Dangui-a famous Yue Opera actress in Shanghai-committed suicide on October 13,1947. It soon became a sensational case in Shanghai and aroused the attention of the press and the theater. Later the police launched an investigation on her death. Xiao Dangui and her case were widely discussed in public cultural spaces then. We can find that the modern media played an important role in the dissemination of her death. Moreover, we can examine how the public consume her death and how progressives interpret the meaning of her suicide. There are three reasons why the public focused on Xiao Dangui’s suicide:sympathy on her death, educational significances and chasing the economic benefit.Meanwhile, the article examines the different meanings of her case in different periods. The district court of Shanghai acquitted the suspect Zhang Chunfan-Xiao’s partner in 1947. However, in 1951, Zhang Chunfan was sentenced to death by the government of People’s Republic of China as the title of counterrevolutionary, then try to explore the political influence on drama reform in 1940s-1950s. The article also analyzes the very different images of Xiao Dangui and Zhang Chunfan in the two periods and therefore explores the relation between historical reality and historical memory.