The Life List: Five Star Awards fun facts
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Zoe Tay (left) winning her first Best Actress for The Golden Pillow at the 1996 Star Awards.
PHOTO: ST FILE
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SINGAPORE – Local entertainment’s biggest night is here again, as Mediacorp’s Star Awards gears up for its ceremony on Sunday at Sands Theatre at Marina Bay Sands.
Having skipped a year in 2020, this is the 28th edition of the awards show since it began in 1994. The awards are given out to recognise the national broadcaster’s best Chinese-language content and performers.
But how much do you know about the show and its winners (or losers)? The Straits Times delves into the awards’ history for five interesting facts.
1. Most repetitive award
Though the Star Awards began in 1994, performance-based acting awards were given out only from 1995. Among the four major acting awards, Best Actor has yielded the most repetitive results.
Since its inception, the award has been given to only 11 actors, with Chen Hanwei, 53, scoring a whopping seven wins, including the latest trophy in 2022.
Best Actress fares only slightly better in terms of diversity, with 13 actresses having nabbed the award thus far. Channel 8 “Ah Jie” (Mandarin for big sister) Zoe Tay, 55, and 2022’s winner Huang Biren, 54, are the most awarded in this category, with four wins each.
In hosting, Quan Yifeng, 49, is the undisputed queen. She has won Best Programme Host – introduced in 2016 – five times in a row since 2017. The only other winner in the category is Lee Teng, 38, who won for Love On The Plate 3 in 2016.
Former actor Xie Shaoguang at the 1996 Star Awards. He is among the few who have won 10 consecutive times in the Top 10 Most Popular Artiste category since their first nomination.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Prior to 2016, there were two awards for hosting – Best Variety Show Host and Best Info-Ed Programme Host.
Quan won twice for Best Variety Show Host and once for Best Info-Ed Programme Host, which brings her win count to eight. That is one more than Chen has for acting.
2. Very good but not good enough
(From left) Actors Chew Chor Meng, Terence Cao and Tay Ping Hui at the 2001 Star Awards sporting shaved heads for their series The Reunion. Cao was nominated for Best Actor for his role in the series the next year.
PHOTO: THE NEW PAPER FILE
A nomination is already a win, some say.
Well, not quite, but it is at least a recognition of being among those who had put on the best performances of the year. Still, getting dressed up year in, year out and going home without a trophy must take a toll.
Terence Cao, 55, for example, has been nominated for Best Actor six times without a single win.
Jacelyn Tay, 47, has five nods for Best Actress, but no medal. And if Jesseca Liu, 44, loses out on the award again in 2023 – she is nominated for Soul Detective (2022) – she will tie with Tay as the most nominated actress without a win.
In supporting categories, veteran actor Brandon Wong, 51, and actress Bonnie Loo, 28, have had five nominations each without landing the prize. This year might finally break the curse for Wong, however, as he is nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.
3. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride
(From left) Mediacorp artistes Xiang Yun and Chen Shucheng at the 2017 Star Awards. Both are strong supporting veteran stars.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Xiang Yun is one of local television’s most enduring and beloved actresses.
She has the awards to prove it – 11 nominations with four wins for Best Supporting Actress as at 2022. And she is nominated again for the same award in 2023 for Your World In Mine.
But the 61-year-old has only one Best Actress nomination to her name – for 2004’s Double Happiness. Her co-star in Double Happiness, Ivy Lee, 49, took home the award that year.
Similarly, Chen Shucheng – a staple of the small screen – has 11 nominations for Best Supporting Actor and won twice. Chen, 73, has contended for Best Actor only once for 2002’s Viva La Famille and failed to win.
4. The sub-club within the All-Time Faves club
(From left) Li Nanxing and Zoe Tay both received their All-Time Favourite Artiste awards at the 2004 Star Awards ceremony.
PHOTO: ST FILE
After actors have accumulated 10 wins in the categories of Top 10 Most Popular Male or Female Artistes, they get to ascend to the status of All-Time Favourite Artistes and are exempt from competing in the popularity awards.
Having clinched their 10th victory in 2022, actresses Felicia Chin, 38, and Rebecca Lim, 36, will receive their All-Time Favourite Artiste trophy in 2023.
It is a rarefied pool of stars who enjoy the title of an All-Time Fave. But Lim belongs to an even more exclusive sub-club within that club – stars who have won 10 consecutive times in this category since their first nomination.
Aside from her, the stars who enjoy that honour are Zoe Tay; Fann Wong, 52; Rui En, 42; Chew Chor Meng, 54; Li Nanxing, 58; Xie Shaoguang, 61; and Elvin Ng, 42.
5. Brightest rookie
Actress Fann Wong during the 1995 Star Awards, where she notched up wins for both Best Actress and Most Popular Newcomer.
PHOTO: THE NEW PAPER FILE
Leave it to superstar Fann Wong to achieve an as-yet-unparalleled feat at the 1995 Star Awards.
That year, Fann – then a 24-year-old fresh face – won Most Popular Newcomer and Best Actress for Chronicle Of Life (1995).
This achievement prompted Fann to blurt out onstage: “Now, what am I supposed to win next year?”
Fann has never won Best Actress again since then, despite several nominations over the years.
The only one who came close to pulling off that dazzling double was Singapore’s own superhero VR Man, James Lye.
The 53-year-old, who now works in the banking industry, was named Most Popular Newcomer in 1997, but lost the Best Actor trophy to fellow The Price Of Peace co-star Christopher Lee.
Star Awards 2023 will air live on Sunday from 7pm on Channel 8 and Channel U, with a simulcast on mewatch and the Mediacorp Entertainment YouTube channel. The Walk Of Fame red carpet pre-show will air from 5 to 6.30pm.
