Hong Kong’s 66-year-old veteran actress, Deanie Ip, recently revealed a family secret that she had kept hidden for decades during an interview on the mainland Chinese talk show “Beyond the Heat”. She disclosed that her sister had sacrificed her eyesight and suffered severe disfigurement and lifelong disability while trying to save Deanie and their younger sister in a house fire. As a result, Deanie willingly gave up the opportunity for a luxurious marriage, choosing instead to remain unmarried for life and shoulder the responsibility of caring for her sister and their ill mother.
Reflecting on the past in the interview, Deanie recounted the tragic incident when their wooden house caught fire. Her sister bravely rushed into the flames without hesitation to rescue them, but she herself could not escape in time, leading to her lifelong disability. This accident completely changed her sister’s life and cast a shadow over the entire family.
After the trauma, Deanie’s sister became introverted and avoided contact with the outside world, especially during family gatherings like Chinese New Year dinners. This behavior forced the whole family to avoid normal social interactions for an extended period.
Deanie described her sister’s ordeal as an invisible bond that tightly bound her to her family. To protect her sister’s dignity, the family had an unspoken agreement for decades not to disclose the existence of the disabled sister to outsiders, rarely inviting friends to their home.
At the peak of her career at around 25 years old, Deanie received proposals from wealthy suitors. In that era, marrying into a wealthy family was considered the ideal destination for female stars. However, she could not forget her sister, fearing that a wealthy husband would reject her family upon learning the truth and might force her to make a cruel choice between marriage and sibling affection.
Deanie admitted that she was unwilling to abandon her family for anyone, leading to her decision to forgo marrying into wealth. She confessed that she had carried this secret on her own for most of her life, never mentioning it to her sister, causing her immense internal struggle and pressure.
Now in her senior years, Deanie remains unmarried. She revealed that she decided to share the secret publicly to “relieve herself,” but emphasized that she would continue to care for her sister as before.
With a career spanning nearly half a century in the entertainment industry, Deanie won the Best Actress award at the inaugural Hong Kong Film Awards in 1982 for her role in the action film “Nomad”. She became the only female actress in the history of the awards to win the Best Actress title for an action film. Throughout her career, she has won a total of five Best Actress awards at the Hong Kong Film Awards, including for “Nomad,” “Insomnia” (2010), and “The White Storm” (2017).
In 2009, she won the Best Supporting Actress award at the 46th Golden Horse Awards for her role as a mother in the film “Insomnia”. She also won the Best Actress award at the 54th Golden Horse Awards in 2017 for her role as “Madam Tang” in the Taiwanese film “The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful”.
Returning to television in 2019, Deanie starred in the police drama “Iron Investigator,” winning the Best Actress award at the “TVB Anniversary Awards 2019,” achieving the status of both “Queen of the Silver Screen” and “Queen of Television”.
During the interview, Deanie not only shared her personal journey but also expressed her hope to help her sister bravely face the outside world. She plans to take her almost 80-year-old sister out to watch movies that she stars in, urging her sister to rediscover life with a heartfelt plea: “You’re almost 80 years old, how many years do you have left? Go out and enjoy life.” Her simple yet profound affection for her sister touched numerous viewers.