IT HAS BEEN 41 years since Nancy Kwan made a name for herself walking the streets of Wan Chai. Looking out from the heights of the Grand Hyatt's 30th-floor lounge, her dark eyes still dance with the memory.
Kwan was an unknown 18-year-old in 1960 when she was cast opposite William Holden in The World Of Suzie Wong. Her part as Suzie seduced the world and thrust Kwan into international stardom.
The image of Kwan as Suzie, relaxed on a lounge in a stunning cheongsam and a deliciously decadent flash of thigh, is one of cinema's more memorable images. It launched a thousand advertising campaign imitations and more than its fair share of fantasies.
Looking back during a brief return to Hong Kong last week, Kwan says the whole period can sometimes still feel like a dream. 'I didn't really think about what was going on while it was all happening,' she says of her meteoric rise to fame. 'I was only 18, after all, and it was only later that I began to think about all the fuss.'
It is 10am when we meet and Kwan enters the lounge looking frighteningly fresh-faced for a Saturday morning. Sipping green tea as we talk, she has lost none of the style Suzie used to capture Holden's heart.
Dressed in a loose tan skirt and black shirt, the 60-year-old brings with her the glow of a Los Angeles lifestyle. She has lived there full-time since 1980, with her third husband, Austrian film-maker Norbert Meisel. Lured to town for a Wan Chai Rotary Club ball, it has been 12 years since her last trip home and the first souvenir she picked up was a niggling little cough. She laughs it off - 'That's Hong Kong!' - and says she barely recognises the place. 'There are so many new buildings,' she says. 'It has become a city of glass.'