Eric Tsang | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
曾志偉 | |||||||||||
 Tsang in 2007 | |||||||||||
| Born | 14 April 1953 | ||||||||||
| Occupation(s) | Actor, director, producer, television host | ||||||||||
| Spouses | Wong Mei Hua
(m. 1972; div. 1975)Rebecca Chu
(m. 1989; died 2020) | ||||||||||
| Children | 4, including Bowie and Derek | ||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 曾志偉 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 曾志伟 | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Eric Tsang | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Eric Tsang's hand print and autograph at the Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong. | |||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 曾志偉 | ||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 曾志伟 | ||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
Eric Tsang Chi-wai MH (Chinese: 曾志偉; born 14 April 1953) is a Hong Kong actor, film director, producer, and television host, best known for hosting the variety show Super Trio series on the Hong Kong television network TVB over 18 years.[1][2] He is the general manager of TVB.[3]
Tsang is a Hakka of Wuhua ancestry. His father, Tsang Kai-wing, was a former football coach and player, then served in the Royal Hong Kong Police Force from 1940 to 1972. He fled to Taiwan to escape from the Independent Commission Against Corruption in 1976 after being convicted of corruption and sentenced to three years in jail, while still free pending an appeal. In 2001, the Department of Justice seized his house in La Salle Road and later auctioned it for HK$4.35 million after 10 years of civil proceedings. Tsang Kai-wing died in Taiwan in 2011 with his son Eric and other family members around him.[4][5]
Tsang is a cousin of former Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Frederick Ma.[5]
In his youth, Tsang was a Hong Kong professional soccer player.[6]
Tsang began his show business career as a stuntman. Due to his popularity, Tsang is often the master of ceremonies (MC) in events organised by the Hong Kong television network TVB; due to him being the main host of the variety show Super Trio series, he was nicknamed "Prize Master" (獎門人),[7][8] his title in the show. In the 1980s and 1990s, he made parody comedy cassette tapes with songwriter, actor, and comedian Andrew Lam Man Chung. Tsang's singing vocal range is a tenor with no falsetto.[9]
He is known for being a short plump guy with a habit of speaking before thinking, often landing himself into hot water.[citation needed] His insults have led to him being assaulted by rumored triads over bad mouthing singer Joey Yung.[10] As an MC in the Miss Chinese International Pageant, he often favours contestants in Hong Kong.[citation needed]
Tsang has appeared as an actor in many successful Hong Kong films, gaining awards and nominations. Early on in his career, he was typecast as a bumbling, ugly, and crude sidekick, and it was not until encouragement from his daughter Bowie Tsang to stop doing comedic roles that he went on to star in a film with friend Alan Tam and was awarded a Hong Kong best actor award.[citation needed] Perry Lam, a cinema critic from Muse, wrote that Tsang 'brings directness, straightness and a lack of nonsense to whatever role he plays, and occasionally demonstrates an uncanny ability to enter the egoless states of which only the greatest of character actors like Robert Duvall are capable.'[11] Tsang has also been an occasional singer. Despite his high-pitched voice, he sings his parodies and theme songs to variety shows in a low-range tenor or high-range baritone of 2 octaves.[12]
In January 2021, Tsang was appointed TVB's deputy general manager (Non-Drama, Music Production & Programme) and special advisor to the executive committee and will be responsible for the variety show and infotainment program segment.[13] Tsang was involved in the Miss Hong Kong 2021 audition process.[14]
In September 2021, TVB management appointed Tsang as new general manager of content operation.
Tsang is a devout Buddhist, often leading other actors in efforts to raise money for Hong Kong Buddhist temples and events.[15]
Tsang's best friends are Natalis Chan and Alan Tam, who are also famous singers and actors from Hong Kong. Tsang has been close friends with Tam's family since childhood as their fathers were colleagues in the police force and played football together.
Tsang has been married twice. His first marriage was to Taiwanese actress Wang Mei Hua (王美華) in 1972 and they had two daughters, Bowie Tsang and Tsang Wing Yee. They divorced in 1975. Wang brought their eldest daughter back to Taiwan, while their younger daughter moved to Canada.
His second marriage was to Rebecca Chu (朱錫珍) in 1989 and they had two sons, Derek Tsang, the director of Better Days, and Mark Tsang. Chu and their two sons later immigrated to Toronto, Canada without Tsang, who chose to stay in Hong Kong and they have had in a long-distance relationship since then.[16] On 21 April 2013, the Hong Kong 3 Weekly Magazine reported that Tsang's current wife was named Sung Lai Wah (宋麗華) and they had lived apart for 20 years. This was dismissed by Bowie Tsang on the following day. In fact, Sung Lai Wah was the mother of Alan Kuo.[17] Chu died of cancer on 3 August 2020 at the Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital.[18]
In December 2013, Next Magazine published an anonymously produced interview with actress Yammie Lam where she said that she had been raped by two Hong Kong entertainment industry "big brothers" 20 years ago. According to Lam, one of the individuals had died not long ago, while the other individual is alive. She further claims that the second individual had raped her during a film production in Singapore. However, the names of the alleged perpetrators were censored out of the audio, which generated intense media speculation. It is not known who the interviewer was; in fact, the interviewer's voice shows evidence of having been digitally manipulated from a natural female voice to a male voice.[19][20] In January 2018, a mainland Chinese journalist uploaded what is purported to be an uncensored recording of Yammie Lam's 2013 interview. In the new 2018 clip, the interviewer now has a natural female voice, and the formerly censored portions implicate Alan Tang (deceased in 2011) and Eric Tsang as the two alleged rapists of Lam. Media analysts have endorsed the authenticity of the newly released video; they note that the 2018 video did not have noise removal or other post-production traces that are observed in the publicly released 2013 clip; hence, whoever leaked the video must have had direct access to the original unedited video.[21]
Two days after the release of the January 2018 video, the sexual offense claim against Eric Tsang was corroborated by Grace Han, a talent agent who formerly headed the Ford Models agency in Asia. Han further alleged that Eric Tsang had sexually assaulted more than one woman, and claims to know of a specific incident in which a group of male Hong Kong celebrities, led by Tsang, allegedly drugged seven female models in a Hong Kong karaoke bar and raped six of them, while one girl escaped after she noticed the drugging.[22][23] Han's Weibo post has since been deleted.[24]
Tsang rejected the authenticity of the uploaded video and denied Grace Han's allegation.[25] A week after the allegations surfaced, Tsang filed a defamation lawsuit against Grace Han in the Hong Kong High Court, arranged for a press event, and announced that "punishment" is needed. Tsang further claimed to the media that he had already won a defamation lawsuit in 2006 on similar grounds, but independent media sources have not been able to corroborate this claim.[22][23]
