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陳楚蕙原名陳玉真，廣東普寧人，1943年生於香港，出生後翌年因戰亂隨父母回鄉居住，戰後返回香港。1953年她考進新天彩潮劇團，與鄭楚香同期拜師，跟隨張木津學戲，專工小生，學藝期間亦做過紙影戲。1956年，年僅十三歲的她正式登台，主演《雌雄劍》。其後她參與潮語配音片工作，為任劍輝、羅劍郎配唱潮曲。1960年，她隨新天彩演出首部電影《後母心》（1960），擔任男主角；其後參演《蘆林會》（1960），客串漁家女一角。她與花旦方巧玉主演第三部電影《掃窗會》（1961），演出備受讚賞。她陸續為鮀英影業公司、萬聲電影製片公司拍片，初期較多與來自泰國的花旦曾珊鳳合作，拍了《烈女忠魂》（又名《辭郎洲》，1961）、《釵頭鳳》（1961）、《碧玉簪》（1962）、《劉章下山》（1962）等名作；又為聯友製片公司與方巧玉合演《紅鬃烈馬》（1963）、《孟麗君》（1963）等傑作。1963年新加坡光藝機構成立潮藝製片公司專拍潮語片，她夥拍原為泰蘭影業公司當家花旦的陳麗麗，演出了《牡丹亭驚夢》（1963）、《紅梅記》（1963）、《牆頭馬上》（1964）、《荊釵記》（1964）等；亦與花旦梅貞為潮藝拍了《呂蒙正》（1963），為其代表作之一。1964年2月潮藝與她簽訂演員合約，拍攝《金殿辯本》（1966）、《崔鳴鳳晉袈裟》（上、下集，1968）等最後一批潮語片。從影短短數年間，她共主演五十多部潮語片。1966年，她首次隨新天彩到泰國登台，其後數年到東南亞各地演出，有潮劇「小生王」的稱號。七十年代她為照顧家庭告別藝壇，1980年復出，1990年自組香港楚蕙潮劇團，活躍海內外，並曾與內地多個潮劇團合作。2012年9月汕頭市舉辦第四屆潮劇節，她應邀登台演唱，同年10月23日病逝。
English
Chan Chor-wai, born Chan Yuk-jan in Hong Kong in 1943 to a Puning family from Guangdong, was raised in the countryside during the war and returned to Hong Kong afterwards. In 1953 she joined the Sun Tin Choi Chaozhou Opera Troupe, studying under Cheung Muk-tsun alongside Cheng Chor-heung and specialising in the xiaosheng (young male) role; while training she also performed in shadow-puppet theatre. In 1956, aged only thirteen, she made her formal stage debut in The Male and Female Swords. She went on to dub Chaozhou songs for Cantonese stars such as Yam Kim-fai and Law Kim-long. In 1960 she appeared in her first film, Stepmother (1960), with the Sun Tin Choi troupe, taking the male lead, and had a cameo as a fisher girl in The Innocent (1960). Her third film, The Window-sweeping Meeting (1961), opposite the dan Fong Hau-yuk, won praise. Working for the Tuoying and Man Sing companies, she was often paired with the Thai-based dan Tsang Shan-feng in hits such as The Loyal Maiden (also known as The Song of the Farewell Pavilion, 1961), The Phoenix Hairpin (1961), The Jade Hairpin (1962) and The Story of Liu Zhang (1962), and with Fong Hau-yuk in The Red-Maned Steed (1963) and Meng Lijun (1963). When the Singapore-based Kong Ngee organisation formed the Chaoyi company in 1963 to make Chaozhou films, she partnered the former Thai dan Chan Lai-lai in The Peony Pavilion (1963), The Red Plum Blossom (1963), Meeting on the Wall (1964) and The Thorn Hairpin (1964), and with Mui Ching made Lu Mengzheng (1963), one of her signature roles. Under contract to Chaoyi from February 1964, she made her last Chaozhou pictures, The Debate at the Palace (1966) and the two-part Tsui Ming-fung (1968). In just a few years she starred in more than fifty Chaozhou-dialect films. She first toured Thailand with Sun Tin Choi in 1966, and for several years after that performed across Southeast Asia, earning the title 'King of Male Roles' in Teochew opera. Leaving the stage in the 1970s to raise her family, she returned in 1980 and in 1990 formed the Hong Kong Chan Chor-wai Chaozhou Opera Troupe, performing widely and collaborating with mainland troupes. Still devoted to the stage, she sang at the fourth Chaozhou Opera Festival in Shantou in September 2012 and died on 23 October that year.
