The two sides of a legend

Before her stage career had taken off, Qin married an actor who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic. The marriage lasted less than three years and was the reason behind her fleeing again, this time to a more remote city that was situated at the border of Sichuan and Tibet.

Qin was quoted as saying that "she would never marry again" and that she would dedicate her life to acting. However, less than a year later, she met Jin Yan, a Korea-born Chinese who was dubbed the "most handsome man in the country". She soon married Jin, who was 12 years her senior, and gave birth to a son. Chinese columnist Huang Tongtong once wrote that her second marriage was inevitable, noting how it would have been too difficult a task for a beauty like Qin to refrain from romance at such a young age.

Back during her days in school, Qin was nicknamed "peacock's peer" as people said her beauty always incited peacocks to flaunt their tails. When she was older, she was even called "the most beautiful Chinese actress ever" by the then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai.

"I only see it when looking into the mirror. But how much time can one stare at the mirror in her life?" said Qin, in response to a question about beauty during the salon.

Her second marriage did not last long either. While the couple separated after less than seven years together, they never went through a divorce. When Jin was struck by a stomach illness, a result of overdrinking, Qin took care of him for more than 20 years despite her acting career picking up in the 1950s. In 1959, Qin played the lead character in three blockbuster films. Jin died from internal bleeding in the stomach in 1983.

Qin's role as mother was no less arduous. A year after she was publicly criticized and tortured for being an actress during the cultural revolution (1966-1976), her son was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

She said that the diagnosis was as much a sentence to her as it was to her son, adding that it served to "put out all her desires ever since". The condition caused her son to turn violent but Qin would not stop him from beating her. She only told him that he could not hit her on the face as she needed it to earn a living.

Qin later spent her life savings to buy an apartment where she could take better care of her son. In 2007, less than two years before the construction of the apartment was completed, her son passed away.

She never moved into the apartment.

Qin said there are three things she regrets most in her life - never enjoying the sweetness of love, her son's disease and not getting to play a truly satisfactory character that was created by her.

These days, she spends most of her time trying to rectify that last regret. In 2014, she kicked off the production of The Beautiful Kokonor Lake, a film written by her that is based on the true story of an Australian meteorologist and his wife who were working on an artificial rainfall project on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The wife lost her life during a car accident while working on the project.

In the show, Qin plays the role of the wife. She is believed to be the oldest actress to play a leading role in a film. Qin, who was then already 92 years old, had to commute six hours every day during the filming on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The film was released in 2015.

Working at the high-altitude plateau was tough and Qin joked that she had to fake gasps to be a part of the crew, many of whom suffered from nose bleeds, dizziness and headaches.

When asked about the happiest days of her life, Qin replied it was the few months she spent in the remote city, after running away from her first husband. Singing and dancing in the sea of opium poppy, she said, was liberating.

Despite her age, Qin is still searching for more acting opportunities, saying there are at least another two roles she wants to sign up for. She is also working on the script for a new film in which she hopes to act in. Attending English classes, she said, is also on the agenda.

xujunqian@chinadaily.com.cn