Police found a suicide note, his driver’s licence, two credit cards, a car key and a few thousand dollars on his body.

Police refused to disclose the contents of the note but said his death was believed to be due to emotional problems.

As news of Cheung’s death emerged, young women fans arrived and laid bouquets and cards near the spot where his body was found.

Cheung, who was gay and lived with his banker lover in Kadoorie Avenue, Ho Man Tin, shot to fame when he was runner-up in ATV’s Asian Music Contest in 1976.

Friends and colleagues last night expressed shock and sadness over the star’s death.

“I know that he had complained of feeling sick a while ago. But after going to the doctor his condition improved,” said Kelvin Wong, general manager of the Chinese music division of Universal Music.

“Everything is in a state of chaos now. There were no signs that he was emotionally disturbed.”

Mr Wong said that in the past few months, Cheung had been composing and recording songs for his new CD, which was to be released later this year.

Stephen Chan Chi-wan, assistant general manager of TVB, said that the station would call a meeting this morning to arrange for programmes commemorating the star’s life to be aired.

Cheung was nominated best actor for Inner Senses at the Hong Kong Film Awards due to take place on Sunday.

Showman who dared to be different

By Winnie Chung

My first reaction on hearing the news about Leslie Cheung was sheer disbelief. His death just wasn’t possible; it was an April Fool’s joke that was in extremely bad taste.

I had met Cheung on many occasions over the past decade and a half - mostly for work but also the odd night out at Central nightspots with mutual friends.

He was always proud of the way he looked. One of his frequent questions while twirling around in some new outfit would be “doesn’t this look nice on me?” Cheung has always admitted to being narcissistic. It is one of the reasons why my first interview with him, sitting in a Chinese restaurant in Malaysia with Anita Mui Yim-fong in 1987, had always stuck in my mind. “I’m a narcissist,” he had purred. “I love the way I look and perform.”

He was already on the fast track up the pop star chart then - one of the few who was just known by a first name. Unlike all the other Canto-pop singers who played safe with boring, politically correct comments, Cheung was refreshingly honest. In a sense, this was what brought him his biggest headaches in the business.

Unable to deal with his frankness, the press labelled him as arrogant and pitted him against rival Alan Tam Wing-lun. The comparisons did not please Cheung.

In subsequent interviews and meetings with Cheung, he wavered between trying to be politically correct to win approval and being unable to hold back in voicing honest opinions.

You could almost see him being pulled apart. His narcissistic nature craved the public adulation and the limelight. Yet he also hated the strings that came with the fame; the criticism and the invasion of his privacy.

I remember sitting in a lonely dressing room with him on the set of The Bride With White Hair one cold night in 1992. He had essentially quit singing - at least for the major awards. In an unusually frank chat, Cheung was busy gossiping about an actress we both didn’t like. “Oh, she’s such a bitch,” he said then, laughing with a carefree air that I had never seen in him before.

Since then, every time I met him, he was more and more open as he became comfortable with himself, with little to lose in the battle for popular opinion. This probably coincided with the fact that he felt he no longer had to go to extremes to hide his sexual preferences, even if he never discussed his homosexuality.

The final metamorphosis of Leslie Cheung seemed to have been complete when I sat opposite him in a suite at the then-Regent Hotel where he was promoting the film Inner Senses last year. Still charmingly boyish, but this time with an impish mischievousness, he was lamenting the appearance of wrinkles. “I’m growing old,” he moaned. Yet, his laugh implied that he was less than upset about it.

When I left the interview, I remember calling some friends and remarking on how much more at ease with life he seemed. It was like he had finally thrown off the last shackles of Canto-pop stardom that had imprisoned him. We made plans to meet for dinner.

That dinner never came to be. Since finishing the film, friends reported that he hadn’t been “quite himself”. He avoided all but his closest circle of friends.

It is that same circle of friends who yesterday shared my disbelief. It is just so not like him, those who called me said. “What a waste,” said those who weren’t his friends.

It was probably the one time that Cheung’s supporters and detractors finally agreed on something.

Love him or hate him, he was the consummate showman. He could dance, he could sing and, as he showed later in his career, he could certainly act. He was that kind of all-round talent that is becoming a bigger and bigger rarity in Hong Kong. You will be missed, Leslie.