Marrie Lee

Last updated
Marrie Lee
Born
Doris Young Siew Keen

(1959-11-25) November 25, 1959 (age 64)
Colony of Singapore
Nationality Singaporean
Other namesCleo
Cleopatra Wong
Alma mater St Anthony’s Convent Secondary School
Occupation(s)healthcare company owner, actress, writer, producer, director
Years active1976–1981
2012–present
Employer(s)Reel Frenz Productions (founder) (2012–present)
Singapore Cinema Pte Ltd (founder) (2014–present)
Parents
  • John Young (father)
  • Mary Young (mother)
FamilyJimmy Young (brother)
Betty Young (sister)
Website www.cleopatrawong.com

Doris Young Siew Keen (born November 25, 1959) is a Singaporean director, producer, writer and actress. Given the stage name Marrie Lee, she was best known for her role as Cleopatra Wong in the late 1970s.

Contents

Early life

Young was born on November 25, 1959, in Singapore to the contractor John Young and his wife Mary. She had an older brother named Jimmy and an older sister named Betty. Due to her father's work with cinema owners and film distributors, around the age of four and five, Young often met Hong Kong film actors while they were promoting their movies in Singapore, making her consider acting as one of her life goals.

Her father died when she was six and her mother died when she was sixteen. [1]

Career

Following her graduation from St Anthony’s Convent Secondary School, Young worked as a restaurant usher in a nightclub or restaurant at Shenton Way in about 1976, [2] where she was discovered by a scouting team from Hong Kong and received her first acting role, a minor role as a female detective based in Singapore for the Hong Kong film Showdown at the Equator .

A year later in 1977, she answered a newspaper ad that asked "Are you smart, sexy and seductive?". The ad was placed by Bobby A. Suarez' BAS Film Productions, looking for a heroine who could ride a motorcycle. Lee won the role among 300 hopefuls. [3] Aged 18, Young shot to fame portraying the title character Cleopatra Wong in 1978's They Call Her Cleopatra Wong , a martial arts film shot in Singapore and Philippines about a female Interpol agent written and directed by Suarez.

Her screen name, Marrie Lee, was created by the producers to capitalize on the fame of the late Bruce Lee. Due to this, during filming there were fans who said they'd watched all of her "brother's" films. "Some fans thought that I was his younger sister", she later told The Business Times in a 2005 interview.[ citation needed ]

She reprised the role in 1979's Dynamite Johnson , in which she teamed with 10-year-old Singaporean Taekwondo practitioner Johnson Yap, who reprised his role as Sonny Lee respectively from The Bionic Boy , a 1978 film also written and directed by Suarez. She reprised her role for the third time in Devil's Angels , in which she led an all-female team of crimefighters in the Philippines. [4] She performed her own stunts during her filming, including jumping through a real glass window and dangling from a helicopter, [5] and sustained many injuries, including a fractured left wrist. [6]

In the early 1980s, Suarez was developing a film where Young would co-star with Weng Weng. The project never materialized. [7] Her supposed reprisal as Cleopatra Wong as a supporting role on the film The Wandering Samurai also never materialized. After her first three films, Suarez pleaded with her to sign a contract to make ten more movies, but she turned it down. A lead role as Charlie Chan's daughter Ling Chan in the American film Charlie Chan's Number One Daughter also failed to materialise due to the Hollywood labor strikes in 1980 and 1981.

Young retired from acting in 1981 and managed a dance troupe, The Devil's Angels (named after the members from her third Cleopatra Wong film), for two years, while starting a family. At some point when she was offered an acting opportunity, but her husband said no. She later ran a healthcare company Tisco Pte Ltd with her sister Betty from 1989 onwards.

During the Screen Singapore festival from August 1 to 31 in 2005, [8] Young was reunited with Bobby Suarez, where Suarez himself expressed his interest in doing a Cleopatra Wong reboot.

When Suarez died of a heart attack on February 8, 2010, Young inherited the franchise rights of Cleopatra Wong and its website. [9] Also that year, Mark Hartley's documentary film Machete Maidens Unleashed! premiered. Young is interviewed in the documentary that explores exploitation films made in the Philippines in the 1970s and 1980s. [10] [11] [12]

In December 2012, Young started a filmmaking hobbyist group, Reel Frenz Productions, [13] working as a director, producer and writer. She has helped produce at least 12 short films since then.[ citation needed ]

In 2013, Young was interviewed in the documentary The Search for Weng Weng. [14] [15]

With the help of her partner Jacqueline, she expanded her healthcare company to Hong Kong in 2014. She later established a filmmaking company Singapore Cinema Pte Ltd in February 2015 to oversee her feature film projects. [16] Her first directorial debut feature film Certified Dead was released in 2016. [17]

Family

Young had been married and divorced three times. [18] Film director and writer of Shirkers Sandi Tan is her ex-stepdaughter. [19]

Filmography

Films

[20]

Date of releaseTitleRoleNoteRef
1978 Showdown at the EquatorFemale Detective
They Call Her Cleopatra Wong Cleopatra Wong
Queen CobraQueen Cobra
1979 Dynamite JohnsonCleopatra Wong
Devil's AngelsCleopatra Wong
1985 Target Scorpion
2016 Certified DeadDirector, executive producer, writer, location manager

Short films

Date of releaseTitleRoleNote
2013RojakOpera Prince ConsortDirector, executive producer, writer
Yokaiexecutive producer
The Sound of Musewriter, director, executive producer
Rojak: The Day When TV Went Insanewriter, director, executive producer
2014Renéwriter, director, executive producer
Heart Flutterswriter, co-director, executive producer
The Audition: Yolowriter, director, executive producer
The Next Jobwriter, director, executive producer
Choicesdirector, executive producer
Big Boys Don't Crywriter, director, executive producer
2016Music for Her Earswriter, director
Little Girl Lostwriter, director
Barely Nakedwriter, director, executive producer
2017LemonaidParty guest 3director, executive producer, cameo
20197 Bulletsdirector

Documentaries

Date of releaseTitleNote
2010 Machete Maidens Unleashed!
2013 The Search For Weng Weng

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References

  1. ↑ https://www.ricemedia.co/cleopatra-wong-marrie-lee-singapore-film/
  2. ↑ https://sindie3.rssing.com/chan-60389134/all_p3.html
  3. ↑ Paul, Louis (29 Nov 2014). Tales from the Cult Film Trenche. United States: McFarland & Company, Inc. p. 158. ISBN   9780786484027.
  4. ↑ Bionic Boy and Cleopatra Wong: Singapore's Heroic Duo Archived 2006-04-30 at the Wayback Machine , Southeast Asia Cinematheque, 2005.
  5. ↑ "Smash! Bang! Pow!", Business Times, July 1, 2005 (retrieved on December 11, 2006, via Singapore Rebel).
  6. ↑ "What Sun Chlorella users say". Archived from the original on October 9, 1999. Retrieved 2013-09-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) (retrieved from Google cache on December 11, 2006).
  7. ↑ Leavold, Andrew. The Search for Weng Weng (DVD). USA: Wild Eye Releasing. 760137943594.
  8. ↑ "HAPPY BIRTHDAY SINGAPORE!". www.nas.gov.sg. Archived from the original on 2018-11-19. Retrieved 2018-11-19.
  9. ↑ "Cleopatra Wong International". Cleopatra Wong International.
  10. ↑ HK Film Fest Picks:Final Day- Scene Asia - WSJ
  11. ↑ Machete Maidens Unleashed: When B movies invaded the Philippines - The Globe and Mail
  12. ↑ Hartley, Mark. Machete Maiden Unleashed! (DVD). Australia: Umbrella Entertainment. 9344256002045.
  13. ↑ "Who is Cleopatra Wong? An Interview with Marrie Lee | SINdie". 2017-02-28. Archived from the original on 28 February 2017. Retrieved 2023-01-03.
  14. ↑ Harvey, Dennis (2015-02-26). "Film Review: 'The Search for Weng Weng'". Variety. Retrieved 2021-07-25.
  15. ↑ Leavold, Andrew. The Search for Weng Weng (DVD). USA: Wild Eye Releasing. 760137943594.
  16. ↑ "Singapore Cinema presents Certified Dead". singaporecinema.com. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
  17. ↑ "SINDie: Who is Cleopatra Wong? An interview with Marrie Lee". Sinema.SG – Singapore Film News Portal since 2006. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
  18. ↑ "Cleopatra Wong Is the Forgotten Movie Star That Singapore Needs Right Now". RICE. 2021-10-08. Retrieved 2022-05-19.
  19. ↑ @sanditan (9 August 2018). "#TBT French VHS of my ex-stepmom Marrie Lee's THEY CALL HER CLEOPATRA WONG (1978) had many things wrong with it inc…" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  20. ↑ "Cleopatra Wong....Filmography". www.cleopatrawong.com. Retrieved 2018-11-20.

Bibliography

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