Bai Ling Bai Ling, whose name translates to White Spirit or White Light in English, was born on October 10, 1970, in Chengdu, China. During China’s Cultural Revolution, Ling’s parents, a music teacher and a dancer and actress, were persecuted for their professions, and Ling then went to live with her grandmother. Ling was a musical theater performer with the People's Liberation Army in Tibet when she was just fourteen years old. By the end of her service in Tibet, Ling was briefly hospitalized for depression, and had become increasingly defiant of the Chinese government’s strict regime, which forbade her use of tobacco, alcohol, and most of all, her participation in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
In 1991, Ling arrived in the Big Apple to enroll in New York University's film department and remained in the United States until she became an American citizen in 1999. That same year, Ling began dating singer Chris Isaak in a relationship that lasted for two years. Ling’s big break in American acting came in 1994, when she landed the role of Myca in The Crow. After she portrayed a lawyer defending an American journalist in China in the film Red Corner in 1997, Ling found that her contracts that allowed her to appear in Chinese films had been cancelled, and her Chinese passport had been revoked. This did not hamper Ling’s work in the United States, however. In 1998, Ling was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. One year later, she landed roles in Wild Wild West, alongside Will Smith, Salma Hayek, and Kevin Kline; as well as in Anna and the King with Jodie Foster, for which Ling shaved off her thirty-six-inch-long mane of hair. Ling was also filmed in Star Wars: Episode III in 2005; however, her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Ling has claimed she was cut from the film because the film’s release coincided with her appearance in Playboy magazine. Director George Lucas denied this, however, and maintains that Ling’s scenes had been cut over a year prior to the film’s release.
In 2005, Ling appeared on the VH1 reality/talent show, But Can They Sing? Since then, Ling has become known for sporting outrageous, barely-there outfits to several high-profile events, and has become a popular target for many gossip websites in the process. In February 2007, Ling will guest-star on popular series Lost, starring Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly. YUDDY |
