Veteran Hong Kong actor Kenneth Tsang dies at 87
HONG KONG - Veteran Hong Kong actor Kenneth Tsang, who starred in the Channel 8 television series The Teochew Family in 1995, was found dead at a hotel in Hong Kong on Wednesday (April 27). He was 87.
According to the Hong Kong media, Tsang returned from Singapore to Hong Kong on Monday and was staying at Kowloon Hotel to serve his quarantine.
His rapid antigen test on Tuesday was negative.
On Wednesday, no one answered when staff from the Department of Health went to his room for a regular check.
Tsang was found unconscious in his room when hotel staff opened the door. He was pronounced dead by the paramedics who arrived at the scene later. The cause of his death is not known.
He acted in more than 100 movies and television series after entering show business in the 1950s.
His memorable roles include the "Eastern Heretic" Huang Yaoshi in TV series The Legend Of The Condor Heroes (1983), an adaptation of late writer Louis Cha's martial arts novel of the same name, and Uncle Ken in the movie A Better Tomorrow (1986).
His Singapore TV credits include The Unbeatables II (1996) and The New Adventures Of Wisely (1998).
He also appeared in Hollywood films such as The Replacement Killers (1998), Anna And The King (1999) and Memoirs Of A Geisha (2005).
He won the Best Supporting Actor award for the crime thriller Overheard 3 (2014) at the Hong Kong Film Awards in 2015.
Tsang sparked a controversy in Singapore in 1995 when he said "Singapore actors are stupid" in an interview with a weekly entertainment magazine. He later apologised for his remarks.
He was also in the news in Hong Kong in 2015 after fellow veteran actor Patrick Tse accused him of faking illness and slapped him while they were promoting a reality show at a press conference.
Tsang is married to actress Chiao Chiao, 79. He has a son and daughter from two previous marriages.
Hong Kong's Oriental Daily News called Chiao when news broke of her husband's death, but it was picked up by her staff who said that she was not free.
Tsang is also the uncle of Hong Kong singer Linda Wong, whose mother, late actress Jeanette Lin Tsui, was his younger sister.
Wong is currently in Taiwan handling the funeral of her father, actor Jimmy Wang Yu.
She told Oriental Daily News on Wednesday that she had spoken to her aunt after her father's death, but she was not aware of her uncle's death.
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