Florence Lim (21 January 1905 – 16 February 1979), better known as Lim Cho-cho, was a Chinese Canadian actress in the cinema of the Republic of China and British Hong Kong from 1925 to 1954. She was the second wife of filmmaker Lai Man-Wai and the mother of actors Lai Hang and Lai Suen. Gigi Lai is her granddaughter.
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Early life
Florence Lim was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, where her grandfather, an immigrant from Xinhui (now part of Jiangmen), Guangdong, China, owned a rice shop. Her father died when she was 3. She attended Chinese Public School in Victoria which allowed her to be proficient in both English and Chinese. When she was 9, her widowed mother went to Hong Kong to receive medical treatment, and at age 12 Lim joined her in Hong Kong, having completed primary school. In Hong Kong she enrolled in Ying Wa Girls' School. One of her classmates named Lai Hang-kau (who would later become known as Lai Cheuk-cheuk) introduced her to her uncle Lai Man-Wai. Even though he was 12 years her senior and already married, Lim married him as his second wife in 1920, when she was 15.
Career
Lim's acting career started in Hong Kong when she played the lead role in Rouge (1925), the first film produced by her husband's China Sun Motion Picture Company. In 1926, China Sun relocated to Shanghai, and there Lim continued to star in silent films such as A Poet from the Sea (1927) and Romance of the Western Chamber (1927). Her credits after China Sun became the Lianhua Film Company in 1930 included A Spray of Plum Blossoms (1931), Song of China (1935), National Customs (1935), and Song of a Kind Mother (1937). Lim particularly excelled in mother roles. Her son Lai Hang also appeared in many films around this time. In 1931, she also acted in the Indian film Kamar-Al-Zaman, an adaptation of a tale from the Arabian Nights directed by Shah G. Agha, where she appeared in the role of princess Budur.
