Betty Ting Pei     

                                                                                  Ting Pei  Betty Ting Pei

                                                                                       (Ting Pui, Ding Pei, Betty Ting Pei, Tang Mei Li)            

                                                                                                 Actress

                                                               

                                     A well known Shaw Brothers actress in the 1960's and 70's, Betty Ting Pei acted in

                                      dramas, comedies, musicals and martial arts films. The sultry Taiwanese sex bomb 

                                     often played mistress roles and shot many bedroom scenes in her career. Betty was 

                                         a regular of director Inoue Umetsugu, for whom she performed in the musicals

                                         The Millionaire Chase with Lily Ho and Chin Ping, The Yellow Muffler with

                                     Tsung Hua, Irene Chen and Chun Pui., and the 'spy-fi' movie The Brain Stealers 

                                                                          with Peter Chen Ho and Lily Ho.

                                                                                 

                                    Betty Ting Pei's real name is Tang Mei Li. She adopted the stage name Ting Pei after 

                                    signing with Shaw Brothers in January 1967. Prior to moving her career from Taiwan to 

                                          Hong Kong, she starred in six movies for the China Motion Picture Corporation. 

                                     Shaw Brothers director Peter Pan Lei spotted the young talent, and recruited her to 

                                      play a dance hostess in his film The Purple Shell (1967). Already known in Taiwan,

                                    Shaw Brothers held a press conference to introduce her to Hong Kong audiences. She

                                       then began this new phase in her career with a larger role as a rich heiress in Pan's

                                                                             Tomorrow is Another Day.  

                                        

                                    Sporting a brown tinted beavertail bob and bellbottoms, Ting Pei left Shaw Brothers by 

                                   1973 and became a free agent, continuing to make films in her native Taiwan as well as

                                Hong Kong. She starred with Ko Chuen Hsiung and Nora Miao in The Changing Clouds,

                                a Taiwanese romance, visited Bruce Lee in Rome while he filmed Way of the Dragon in the

                                Coliseum, and traveled Europe. Despite her efforts, it is for her relationship with that singular 

                                        kung fu star, and not her acting, that her name is most recognized outside of Asia. 

                                                          

                                 According to press reports, Bruce Lee was going over the Game of Death script in Betty's 

                                apartment when he requested some aspirin to alleviate a headache. Betty, who was slated to 

                                  co-star in the film, had planned to have dinner with Bruce, Golden Harvest CEO Raymond

                                  Chow, and actor George Lazenby afterwards. She gave him some prescription equagesic

                                                                  and Bruce then went to sleep in a bedroom.

                                 When Bruce never awoke, Betty called an ambulance and Lee was rushed to the hospital,

                                     where he was pronounced dead. Due to the mysterious circumstances of his death, 

                                               rumors of an alleged affair between the two have persisted ever since.

                                      

                                   After Lee's death, Ting resumed her career in film. She appeared in Golden Harvest's Hui 

                                   Brothers comedy Games Gamblers Play (1974), which broke box office records when it 

                                     was released; and had passionate love scenes with former James Bond actor George 

                                        Lazenby in the Australian co-production Stoner, also with Jimmy Wang Yu and 

                                   Angela Mao Ying. Betty played Tang Ching's woman in the The Looks of Hong Kong

                                  a social comedy directed by Stanley Fung Shui Fan which also starred Hsu Feng, Lydia

                                                                                     Shum and Hu Chin

                               

                                    The Hong Kong magazines and tabloids continued to speculate about the true nature of 

                                 Betty's relationship with Bruce Lee. Rather than deny claims of a sexual relationship, Betty

                               fueled them further by producing and starring in an exploitative bio-pic, Bruce Lee and I (1976). 

                              Starring fellow Shaw star Danny Lee as Bruce and directed by John Lo Mar, the film purported 

                                   to tell the "true" story of Bruce's relationship with Ting Pei. "How he lived! How loved! How 

                                      he died! proclaimed the international movie poster of the film, which was distributed by 

                                                                                        Shaw Brothers.

 

                                 After marrying and then divorcing actor-producer Charles Heung, she co-starred in another

                                   gambling picture. Scripted by a young Wong Jing, Mahjong Heroes (1981) also starred 

                                    Patrick TseKwan Hoi San and Chin Siu Ho. By 1985 Betty appeared in her last film, 

                                             My Name Ain't Suzie, retired from show business and became a Buddhist.

      

                                Now, 30 years after Bruce Lee's death, Betty Ting Pei has re-emerged once again to tell her 

                                  side of the story of her true relationship with Bruce Lee. A tell-all autobiography is planned, 

                                                          and this time, Betty promises, she'll deliver the goods.

                                                                 Betty Ting Pei biography © Hong Kong Movie World

 

                                                       Betty Ting Pei Filmography

                                                                           Betty Ting Pei                                                   

1967

The Purple Shell 

1968 Tomorrow is Another Day 
1968 The Brain Stealers  
1969 Dear Murderer
1969 The Singing Escort
1969 The Millionaire Chase
1970 Hellgate
1970 Apartment For Ladies  
1971 The Night is Young
1972 The Yellow Muffler 
1972 The 14 Amazons  
1972 Stranger in Hong Kong
1972 Madness of Love
1973 Love Across the Seas
1973 Adultery, Chinese Style 
1973 The Call Girls
1973 The Rendezvous of Warriors
1974 The Changing Clouds  (TAIWAN) 
1974 The Chinese Godfather    
1974 Naughty! Naughty!      
1974 Stoner   
1974 The Virgin Mart
1974 The Looks of Hong Kong  (aka Life in Hong Kong) 
1974 Games Gamblers Play   
1975 A Debt of Crime
1975 The Playboy
1975 The Evidence 
1975 Old Master Q
1976 Bruce Lee and I   (also pr) *
1978 My Darling Girls
1978 The Mysterious Footworks of Kung Fu   (also pr) 
1981 Mahjong Heroes  
1982 The 82 Tenants
1985 My Name Ain't Suzie  

 

                                                                                  pr = producer      

                                                         * = aka Bruce Lee: His Last Days, His Last Nights

 

 

                                  Coming Soon: Betty Ting Pei Gallery

 

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