Magnate magnet

As if one desirable leading man Tony Leung Chiu Wai is not enough. The ever-elegant actress Carina Lau has rich men falling for her feminine charm


CARINA Lau might be making the news because Taiwanese billionaire Terry Gou fancies her, but he is not the first tycoon the Hong Kong actress has gone out with.

In December last year, Lau was photographed having a candelight dinner with Taiwanese Jack Sun, former chairman of Taiwan-based company Pacific Electric Wire & Cable. It was supposedly to celebrate her 41st birthday.

Sun, 58, reportedly has three wives and his wealth was once estimated to be around S$100 million.

And before Lau met her long-time boyfriend, actor Tony Leung Chiu Wai, she was engaged to Hong Kong tycoon Hui Chun Hung, now 44, whose family's real estate business is estimated to be worth S$3.9 billion.

The two went their separate ways in 1988, reportedly due to fierce objections from Hui's family who felt Lau, then a starlet, was not worthy of him.

They may be kicking themselves now.

Forbes China recently ranked the Suzhou-born actress as the 10th top China-born celebrity last year, based on salary and media exposure. It estimated her 2006 income at 25 million yuan (S$4.9 million).

She was behind big names in sports and entertainment like basketball star Yao Ming, who was No. 1, and actress Gong Li, who was No. 5.

Wealth and its trappings are certainly not unfamiliar to Lau, whose current assets include four properties in mainland China and Hong Kong worth S$24 million, according to Hong Kong's Sudden Weekly.

More recently, at a press conference to promote watch brand Longines, the slim but well-endowed actress was seen sporting a diamond ring - of reportedly 30 carats - on the fourth finger of her right hand.

Asked who gave it to her, she said crisply: 'It's new. A friend gave it to me. I like it.'

Could it have been Gou, 56, listed by Forbes as the 142nd richest man in the world last year with assets worth US$5.5 billion? His company, Hon Hai Precision, is the world's largest contract manufacturer.

What is it about Lau that she counts not just powerful people in her social circle but is also part of the chic party scene in Hong Kong and Shanghai?

And in a celebrity world of short-lived romances, how has the actress managed to keep Leung - one of Hong Kong's most successful and desired actors - by her side for 18 years?

Steely charm

THOSE who have worked with her say her charm lies in a certain self-confidence and cool headedness.

Singaporean Jazreel Low, chief operating officer of the Asmara Spa group here and a former TV actress, says Lau 'turns heads whenever she enters a room'.

The two met at a private party and kept in touch until the late 1990s. Lau also officiated at the opening ceremony of Low's bridal salon in 1995, which she has since sold.

Low describes the actress as a 'casual and pleasant' woman who is elegant and poised and can speak very casually with a stranger yet not appear fake.

She adds: 'Her skin is flawless. Her figure is good. She oozes femininity without even trying.'

Journalists who have interviewed her attest to her 'nu ren wei' or sense of femininity.

Straits Times senior writer Wong Kim Hoh remembers his first in-depth interview with her when she was in town to promote Days Of Being Wild in 1991, where she plays a vamp.

He recalls that she was very candid and did not mince her words, especially about the Hong Kong paparazzi.

'You could tell that she was made of stern stuff and quite determined. She's not had it easy with the Hong Kong press but I guess the name calling has made her quite strong,' he says.

The role, by the way, won her a nomination for Best Actress in the Hong Kong Film Awards. It shut up her critics, who had long made snide remarks about how the China-born actress was a country bumpkin and couldn't act.

She went on to garner more acclaim with blockbuster hits like She's A Man, He's A Woman (1994) and Infernal Affairs II (2003). Her latest work, Curiosity Killed The Cat, where she plays a distressed housewife, won her a nomination for Best Actress in the Golden Horse awards last year.

Guessing games

ACTING was a childhood ambition for Lau, who grew up in Suzhou. Her parents painted for a living.

She joined an acting troupe when she was in secondary school. Making no headway in her career, she moved to Hong Kong in 1980 when she was about 15 to widen her prospects.

She learnt to speak Cantonese and was accepted by local TV station TVB for its acting class.

She met Leung, a Hong Konger, at the acting class and they became a couple seven years later.

Her tough early years no doubt taught her to be street smart and media savvy. Just see how expertly she spars with reporters, who have been hounding her since last December, when she was first spotted with Gou at a charity event organised by singer Faye Wong in Beijing.

After weeks of leaving the media guessing about the state of her relationship with Gou and Leung, she told reporters on Sunday: 'Whether or not I marry Leung Chiu Wai, he is still my closest good friend.'

And when pestered by reporters last week if Gou had, as rumoured, bought her a 40 million yuan villa in Shanghai, she gave another cryptic reply: 'This year, I 'clash' with tai sui (the Chinese God of The Year), so I must be low-key. But that hasn't happened as I wished. I have nothing to do with the matter of the house.'

And earlier, on March 24, she said of reports about Gou and her: 'To an extraordinary woman, self-confidence is very important. I'm not concerned about what people are saying.'

Lianhe Wanbao executive editor (entertainment) Tan Geok Keow says Lau's steely front hides a vulnerability that causes men to rush to protect her.

In 2002, for example, nude photographs of Lau taken when she was abducted by the Hong Kong mafia in 1990 were published by Hong Kong's tabloid Eastweek magazine.

Celebrity friends including Jacky Cheung and Jackie Chan rallied around her, blasting the paparazzi for printing the photos.

When she resurfaced in public the following year, Chinese entertainment reporters noted that she was colder and less candid than before.

Tan says: 'She has been through so much. If she appears to be colder than before, you can't blame her for that.'

Singaporean hairstylist David Gan, who counts Lau as an old friend, lets on that despite her seemingly aloof exterior, she is a caring and warm person.

He got to know her after styling her hair for a magazine here in 1996.

He says that whenever he flies to Hong Kong to style her hair for advertisement or magazine shoots, she would call him at his hotel the night he leaves for Singapore to wish him a safe journey.

'She's a big star. She doesn't have to do that because I'm paid to do my job, but she cares enough for others to do so,' he says.

These days, she is deluged with advertising and endorsement deals, and spends much of her time running Muse, her pub in Shanghai's creative hub, the New Factories.

It is reportedly doing such good business that it is giving VIP Room, a pub run by her friend Faye Wong and her husband Li Yapeng, a run for its money.

However, not so fortunate is TV Mart, a 24-hour home shopping channel in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. Lau became its CEO in November 2004 but stepped down eight months later.

But given her own fortune, money woes are almost certainly not high on the list of this self-made woman.

Adds Gan: 'With her charm and elegance, how can any man resist? But only the most influential and wealthy can match her status.'