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Fifi Young

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Fifi Young
Young, c. 1960
Born
Nonie Tan
Tan Kiem Nio

(1914-01-12)12 January 1914
Sungai Liput, Aceh, Dutch East Indies
Died5 March 1975(1975-03-05) (aged 61)
Jakarta
NationalityIndonesian
EducationElementary school
OccupationActress
Years active1930-1974
SpouseNjoo Cheong Seng
Children5

Fífi Young (Perfected Spelling: Fifi Young; 12 January 1914 – 5 March 1975) was an Indonesian actress of mixed Chinese and French descent. She acted in at least 86 films over her 34-year career.

Early life and stage career

Ms Young was born with the name Nonie Tan (Chinese name Tan Kiem Nio) in Sungai Liput, Aceh, on 12 January 1914[a] to a French father and peranakan Chinese mother; her father may have been a serviceman during World War I.[1] After her father died when she was a child, Young and her mother moved to Batavia (modern day Jakarta), where  Ms Young completed four years of elementary school at a Dutch-run school for Chinese.[2][3]

Ms Young first joined the Dewi Dja' troupe as a dancer, using the pseudonym Dewi Maria.[1]. She later switched to Miss Riboet, where she married the playwright Njoo Cheong Seng when she was 14.[2][3] The elder man coached her in acting and convinced her to take the stage name Fifi Young;  Ms Young was the Mandarin equivalent of Njoo's Hokkien surname, while Fifi was meant to be reminiscent of the French actress Fifi D'Orsay.[3] With Miss Riboet, Young travelled throughout South East Asia, including in British Malaya.[3]

In 1930 the couple established the Moonlight Crystal Follies in Penang, where Young had her first acting job.[4] By the mid-1930s Young and Njoo had switched to the Dardanella troupe.[3] Young was one of the group's stars, and after most of the group went abroad Young and Njoo established their own troupe, Fifi Young's Pagoda, in 1937.[5]

Film career

After the success of Albert Balink's Terang Boelan in 1937 and The Teng Chun's Alang-Alang in 1939, four new film studios were started.[6] One of these, Oriental Film, signed Njoo and Young; Njoo was taken as a writer, while Young was meant to be an actress.[7] Young was hoped to be the studio's bankable star, and starred in the studio's first three films: Kris Mataram (Kris of Mataram; 1940), Zoebaida (1940), and Pantjawarna (Five Colours; 1941).[8] When Njoo left the studio to join Majestic Pictures upon the invitation of Fred Young (no relation), Fifi Young went with him. With Majestic she starred in Air Mata Iboe (Mother's Tears; 1941).[9]

During the Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945, Young and Njoo were members of the Bintang Soerabaia troupe; their fellow member Dahlia had also been a film star before the occupation.[3] The Japanese had closed all but one film studio, essentially killing the industry.[10] During the four-year revolution that followed, Young and her husband led the Pantjawarna troupe.[3]

After the revolution, Young returned to film.[3] During the following two decades she often played mother figures.[5] The American visual anthropologist Karl G. Heider writes that Young performed especially well when acting as an older village woman and that she was well known for chewing betel on-screen.[11]

Young acted in her last film, Teguh Karya's Ranjang Pengantin (Wedding Dress) in 1974. She died on 5 March 1975 after spending several months in the hospital. She was cremated at Muara Karang, North Jakarta, four days after her death, until which she had actively spoke out against the sexually-themed stories that had begun dominating the nation's cinema.[2][3][5] Her daughter Sally, one of five children Young had with Njoo before they divorced, went into acting.[3]

Awards

Young received several acting awards during her career. At the inaugural Indonesian Film Festival in 1955, Young was chosen for the best actress award for her role in Tarmina. In later incarnations of the festival she received several nominations, including Best Actress for Wajah Seorang Pembunuh in 1973 and Best Actress for Jembatan Merah in 1974.[12] In November 2003 Young was posthumously awarded a Budaya Parama Dharma Award by President Megawati Sukarnoputri for her contributions to the development of Indonesian culture. Other awardees included the comedian Bing Slamet and the director D. Djajakusuma.[13]

Filmography

Young acted in at least 86 films over her 34-year career,[14] saying in 1972 that she had forgotten just how many.[4] Those recorded are as follows:

Notes

  1. ^ Several sources give the year as 1912, but Ms Young said she was born in 1914 (Labrousse 1973, p. 175).

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Labrousse 1973, p. 175.
  2. ^ a b c Filmindonesia.or.id, Nonie Tan.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j TIM, Fifi Young.
  4. ^ a b Labrousse 1973, p. 176.
  5. ^ a b c Jahja 2003, Fifi Young.
  6. ^ Biran 2009, p. 205.
  7. ^ Biran 2009, p. 204.
  8. ^ Biran 2009, pp. 228–229.
  9. ^ Biran 2009, pp. 239–241.
  10. ^ Biran 2009, pp. 319, 332.
  11. ^ Heider 1991, p. 61.
  12. ^ Filmindonesia.or.id, Penghargaan.
  13. ^ Unidjaja 2003, Megawati awards.
  14. ^ Filmindonesia.or.id, Filmografi.

Bibliography

  • Biran, Misbach Yusa (2009). Sejarah Film 1900–1950: Bikin Film di Jawa (in Indonesian). Jakarta: Komunitas Bamboo working with the Jakarta Art Council. ISBN 978-979-3731-58-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
  • "Fifi Young" (in Indonesian). Taman Ismail Marzuki. Archived from the original on 19 August 2012. Retrieved 19 August 2012.
  • "Filmografi untuk Nonie Tan". Filmindonesia.or.id (in Indonesian). National Library of Indonesia and Sinematek. Archived from the original on 19 August 2012. Retrieved 19 August 2012. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
  • Heider, Karl G (1991). Indonesian Cinema: National Culture on Screen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 978-0-8248-1367-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Jahja, Junus (24 February 2003). "Fifi Young (1914 - 1975)". Suara Pembaruan (in Indonesian). Archived from the original on 12 March 2007. Retrieved 19 August 2012.
  • Labrousse, P. (1973). "Entretien avec Fifi Young". Archipel (in French). 5: 175–177. doi:10.3406/arch.1973.1049. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
  • "Nonie Tan". Filmindonesia.or.id (in Indonesian). National Library of Indonesia and Sinematek. Archived from the original on 19 August 2012. Retrieved 19 August 2012.
  • "Penghargaan bagi Nonie Tan". Filmindonesia.or.id (in Indonesian). National Library of Indonesia and Sinematek. Archived from the original on 19 August 2012. Retrieved 19 August 2012. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |trans_title= ignored (|trans-title= suggested) (help)
  • Unidjaja, Fabiola Desy (8 November 2003). "Megawati awards posthumously Hero title to Gorontalo figure". The Jakarta Post. Archived from the original on 6 August 2012. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
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