Hong Kong — Legendary Hong Kong comedian Richard Ng, 81 is back in headlines due to his two elder daughters who were recently arrested in separate drug raids in the country.
His oldest daughter, 54, was caught for allegedly growing marijuana in her home while his 52-year-old daughter was found with cannabis after police raided her home. Prior to his daughters’ drug scandal news, Ng, who has been battling kidney failure for the past few years was a guest on veteran Hong Kong media personality Candy Chew’s radio show where he talked about growing up and his drama-filled life.
Ng comes from an extremely wealthy family and not many people know this, according to 8days.sg. His father is one of the founding members of Kowloon Motor Bus Limited, the biggest bus company in Hongkong, and the Kowloon Funeral Parlour.
“My dad made his money from unorthodox means. I have 16 siblings, four mothers. My mother was ranked second but she died when I was eight. You can imagine, when a household has three mothers, who have their own sons and daughters, they would fight and scheme against each other to stand out,” said Ng.
He shared that after his mother died, there was nobody to care for him until he was sent to boarding school at St Stephen’s College in Hong Kong.
“There was a jetty in the school and I would fish there. It was a very enjoyable thing to do. That happy part of my childhood wasn’t spent at home, but at boarding school,” he reminisced.
As his father was a big shot in Hong Kong society, their mansion in Hillwood Raod was often visited by the big names of that time including Bruce Lee.
When asked if he knew Bruce personally, Ng said: “Bruce’s dad was very close to my father because they would ‘chase the dragon’ (an old slang for ‘smoke opium’) together, it was very common during that era.”
Ng shared that he did not understand how his father could run successful businesses under the influence of opium and that he never knew his family was rich when he was young. Only when he was sent to study at England’s most expensive boarding school when he was 15 along with three other brothers that he realised he comes from money. During that time, his father believed that Hong Kong lacked doctors and wanted Ng and his three brothers to study medicine.
Finally, two of his brothers became doctors while he dropped out of dentistry after a year because he knew that even if he graduated, he would not become a dentist. “I really liked watching movies, and that became more and more attractive to me,” Ng said. The comedian then went on to study acting and decided to stay in England upon graduation because he had fallen in love.
At 21, he decided to marry his then-girlfriend. “I was old enough to get married legally but who knew that my father would say that he didn’t care if I was legally allowed to do that, he just wanted to cut off all ties with me,” said Ng. “He didn’t think I could support a wife since I couldn’t even complete my studies. How could I even raise a family?”
He decided to stay in England which greatly disappointed his father who had wanted Ng to return to Hong Kong to manage the family business. Ng refused to break off the marriage and was cut off by his family. To earn a living, Ng washed dishes in a Chinese restaurant, his first job in England. It was not long after that his father passed away but Ng did not return to Hong Kong to pay his final respects.
The actor’s first marriage lasted just half a year after realising that their personalities clashed. He got married again at 25 to a English hairdresser named Susan, whom he is still married to. “When I met her, I wanted to get married again quickly but we had to wait three years because it takes that amount of time to file for divorce in England.”
In 1970, he, Susan and their two daughters returned to Hong Kong because after plying his trade in England for 15 years, he came to the realisation that his prospects as an actor there were bleak.
“I already had two kids then and my son wasn’t born yet, I really wanted to go back to Hong Kong to see if there were opportunities,” he said. The rest clearly is history. His wife then set up her own salon in Hong Kong and became Bruce Lee’s hairdresser.
Ng became successful after starring in the Lucky Stars film series in the 80’s.
He also once revealed that when he was signed to the D&B movie company – Hong Kong’s most influential film company in the ’80s and ’90s – he would make HK$1mil (SSG173K) per movie, which was an exorbitant amount of money then.
At that time, mansions in Hong Kong’s Clearwater Bay and Sai Kung districts cost around HK$1mil too and Ng said that each time he got paid for a movie, he would buy a mansion.
Ng shot 11 movies during that period so you can do the math./TISG