Betty Loh Ti was born as Xi Zhongyi on 24 July 1937 into a prominent family from Pudong, the owner of the Xi Fu Ji Factory in Shanghai. She was born in the midst of the Battle of Shanghai, one of the bloodiest battles of the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which her father was killed by Japanese bombing before she was born. She was the youngest of six siblings, and the actor Kelly Lai Chen was her elder brother. Her pet name was "Liu Di", which was later transformed into her stage name Loh Ti. Their maternal grandfather was the tycoon, who owned Tianchan Theatre, then Shanghai's grandest theatre for Chinese opera. Growing up near the opera house, she became interested in acting since early childhood and often sang along with Peking opera actors. After their mother died in 1948, the children were brought up by their maternal grandmother. In 1949, her grandmother brought the children to Hong Kong, as part of the mass exodus from mainland China after the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War.
Career
In Hong Kong, Loh's family lived next door to Yuan Yang'an, a co-founder and top executive of Great Wall Movie Enterprises. The studio signed a five-year contract with her in 1952, when she was 15. She debuted in the 1953 film The Peerless Beauty. At Great Wall she was eclipsed by the company's "Three Princesses" such as Xia Meng, and was mainly cast in supporting roles. The sole exception was the 1957 film Suspicion, in which she played the female lead. After her contract with Great Wall expired in 1958, Loh jumped ship to Shaw Brothers Studio, which gave her more important roles. In The Magic Touch, her first film with Shaw Brothers, her performance as the famous fictional beauty Lin Daiyu earned her the nickname "Classic Beauty". Her 1960 film The Enchanting Shadow was a breakout success. It received an enthusiastic reception at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival, whose jury praised her as "China's most beautiful actress". In 1963, she played Zhu Yingtai, the female lead in the blockbuster The Love Eterne directed by Li Han-hsiang. It was considered her signature piece, and she won the Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actress for her performance. Loh joined Motion Picture & General Investment in 1964. In 1967, she founded her studio, Golden Eagle Film Company, together with her brother Kelly Lai Chen and director Yuan Qiufeng. She starred in 11 films from 1964 until her death in 1968.
Loh married actor Peter Chen Ho in January 1962, and gave birth to a daughter named Chen Mingming in September 1962, but they divorced in 1967. On 27 December 1968, Loh was found unconscious in her apartment in Kowloon. She was sent to Queen Elizabeth Hospital but died from barbiturate overdose. She was 31.
Legacy
Despite her early death, she is considered a screen legend. In 2017, the Hong Kong Film Archive organised an exhibition to commemorate her 80th birth anniversary. According to the organisers, Betty Loh Ti's "talent and charm remain unsurpassed to this day".
