Tina Leung Kwok-hing, the legendary screen siren widely known as Ti Na who reinvented herself as an entrepreneur, pro-Beijing activist and political commentator, has died aged 65.
The actress, who gained notoriety in the 1970s for nude scenes that she said she later regretted, died on Wednesday morning after working on her latest book to the last, Chan Wing-hong, a close friend and family spokesman, said yesterday.
In a note Chan read to the media yesterday, her daughter Michael Ma Tin-yu, who had gender reassignment surgery to become a man at the age of 30, said Leung did not want to have any open funeral arrangements.
'She wanted everybody to remember her jaunty and chatty persona. She doesn't want people to see her expressionless face after death,' the note said. Chan said Ma was too devastated by her death to speak to the media. 'Her death was quite sudden. Her health worsened much faster than before,' he said. Chan said Leung worked on her upcoming book till her last breath. 'She wrote it during the whole time she was sick.'
News that Leung was ill came in 2005 when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
Ma was at her bedside when she died in the Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital from organ failure.