Who Is The Comedian Lydia Sum That Google Doodle Is Celebrating?

Google Doodle's is today celebrating one of Hong Kong's favourite comedian's Lydia Tin Ha Sum on her 77th birthday.

Sum was a beloved artist in Hong Kong easily spotted with her trademark glasses and bouffant hairstyle. Her fans affectionately call her “Fei Fei” which means “Fat Fat” in Cantonese and also nicknamed her “Happy Fruit”.

Who was Lydia Tin Ha Sum?

Sum was a Shanghai-born actress who began her career as a teen working on the largest production company in Hong Kong at the time, Shaw Brothers Studio. She made her film debut at the age of 15 in a Mandarin comedy 'When the Peach Blossoms Bloom'.

Soon after she landed her breakout job as the emcee of 'Enjoy Yourself Tonight', a popular variety show.

Sum then went onto star in a popular Cantonese film 'The House of 72 Tenants' where her role as a working-class woman stole the limelight. The film overtook blockbuster films released at the time and topped Hong Kong's box office in 1973.

Afterwards she played a similar role in a four-part blockbuster comedy called 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World' which followed a disadvantaged family trying to find wealth. The film became a classic and continues to encourage conversation on social inequality to this day.

The Google Doodle of the performers is an illustration of a film reel portraying her incredible comedic and acting talents loved by those in Honk Kong and beyond.

Today’s #GoogleDoodle honors the legacy of Lydia Sum, one of Hong Kong’s most beloved comedians.

Learn how her films and TV shows often used comedy to provide powerful social commentary on inequality → https://t.co/x7OC0cPrix pic.twitter.com/l8cIoTG8SH

— Google Doodles (@GoogleDoodles) July 20, 2022

Sum also starred in Singapore's English-language sitcom,“Living with Lydia,” which won her Best Comedy Performance at the Asian Television Awards in 2003. 

Throughout her life, she gained credits in over 150 movies and series.

Her personal life:

In her personal life, Sum married actor and singer Adam Cheng in a ceremony in Canada and had a daughter who she named Joyce Cheng Yan-Yee. Sum and Cheng divorced eight months after Joyce was born.

Sum had struggled with several health problems including diabetes and liver cancer which led doctors to remove a third of the organ. In February 2008, the mother-of-one was admitted to intensive care where her health deteriorated quickly. Her family eventually withdrew Sum's life support and she died on February 19.

The comedian's body was brought to British Columbia, Canada where her mother had recently died to be buried at Burnaby's Forest Lawn Memorial Park on February 27. Video footage of the funeral was played at a memorial event at the Hong Kong Coliseum.