Isabella figura

EDITOR’S NOTE
After a long absence, actress-singer Isabella Leong Lok-Sze, one of ReviewAsia’s cover girls, recently grabbed the headlines in Hong Kong when she gave birth to Ethan, her first baby with Richard Li Tzar-Kai, the youngest of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-Shing’s two sons. Ethan Li Cheung-Chi, or “long reign” in Chinese, was born on April 26 in the United States. The name of the boy – the clan’s first grandson – was chosen by his 80-year-old grandfather himself. Richard Li, 42 years old, is the chairman of Hong Kong-dominant telecom and cable company PCCW, which has been caught in some legal turmoil recently over a controversial privatization bid. Although Richard says he has no plans as yet to marry the 20-year-old Isabella, many insiders believe it will only be a matter of time before wedding bells ring, given the elder Li’s traditional approach to family affairs. Li Ka-Shing himself has remained unmarried decades after the death of his wife, the mother of his two sons, Richard and Victor Tzar-Kuoi, who has four daughters. Isabella will be missed on screen, on stage and on the airwaves as she has decided to concentrate on being a mother for now. And she has a big task ahead of her. After all, Ethan definitely adds value to the Li family’s US$16-billion empire.

p until recently, Isabella Leong Lok-sze was a relatively unfamiliar name to many. That was until her performance in the 2006 film Isabella, which won the Silver Bear for best film music at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, and was also nominated for the prestigious Golden Bear

award. It was this performance thatcaught Hollywood’s attention and landed her a role, albeit a minor one, in director Rob Cohen’s forthcoming summer blockbuster, The Mummy:Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, scheduled for release in August 2008.

What’s more impressive is that this 19-year-old has worked her way from obscurity to the threshold of international stardom in less than three years. Much comparisons have been made with Cecilia Cheung, another model-turned-actress who went from obscurity to celebrity within a few short years.

The daughter of a Portuguese father and Chinese-English mother, Hong Kong-born Leong was raised in Macau until she was 15.

“I still go back to Macau on some weekends to visit my family and my friends. My closest friends now are those I knew from my childhood, and all of them are from

Macau,” she says. “It’s very hard to find good friends in this industry, so I keep a handful of people who have known me for more than 15 years.” The five-foot-eight stunner is every bit a woman on the outside, but her innocent demeanor and aspirations betray the girl that has, to some extent, lost her childhood. “When I was 12, I told my mom that I didn’t want to go to school anymore. I was already modeling back then, and other kids were giving me a hard time at school because everyone knew me,” she says. “I asked to be home-schooled instead.”

It was a home without a father figure, as her dad died when she was only a few months old. “I have no memory of him, but I always keep a photograph of him with me,” Leong says with a hint of pride for a father she never knew.

The local press, however, cites this tragic episode as the reason behind her “wild and rebellious” youth. Young as she is, there are already many rumors linking her to various men she’s worked with, including Albert Yeung, former boss of Emperor Entertainment Group (EEG), the company that manages her career. Yeung is more than twice her age.MORE