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Profile | 1980s Hong Kong pop idol Danny Chan’s bittersweet success story: his talent, fame, the tabloid rumours, his retirement and early death
- Danny Chan was one of Hong Kong’s ‘Three Kings and A Queen of Cantopop’ in the 1980s, with fellow idols Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui and Alan Tam
- A big star and talented keyboardist and singer/songwriter, Chan was often subjected to malicious tabloid gossip. He died at the age of 35 in 1993
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This is the seventh instalment in a biweekly series profiling major Hong Kong pop culture figures of recent decades.
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In the 1990s, Hong Kong’s entertainment industry celebrated the “Four Heavenly Kings of Cantopop”. But a decade earlier, there were the “Three Kings and A Queen of Cantopop” – Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing, Anita Mui Yim-fong, Alan Tam Wing-lun and Danny Chan Pak-keung.
Three of them are no longer with us; Chan was the first to die, in 1993, and Mui and Cheung followed in 2003.
While Tam continues to perform at concerts, and Mui and Cheung will forever be part of Hong Kong pop idol history, Chan is the least well remembered of the four. But his contribution to Cantopop was just as important.
Born on September 7, 1958, in Hong Kong, Chan was the son of a watch industry businessman with a passion for Cantonese opera. From an early age, Chan displayed a passion for music, teaching himself to play the organ, keyboard and piano.
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In 1977 he won third prize on the show Hong Kong Pop Song Writing Invitation on TVB (Television Broadcasts) with his original English composition “The Rocky Road”.
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