The two sides of a legend

Marriage

Before her stage career had taken off, Qin married an actor who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic. The marriage lasted less than three years and was the reason behind her fleeing again, this time to a more remote city that was situated at the border of Sichuan and Tibet.

Qin was quoted as saying that "she would never marry again" and that she would dedicate her life to acting. However, less than a year later, she met Jin Yan, a Korea-born Chinese who was dubbed the "most handsome man in the country". She soon married Jin, who was 12 years her senior, and gave birth to a son. Chinese columnist Huang Tongtong once wrote that her second marriage was inevitable, noting how it would have been too difficult a task for a beauty like Qin to refrain from romance at such a young age.

Back during her days in school, Qin was nicknamed "peacock's peer" as people said her beauty always incited peacocks to flaunt their tails. When she was older, she was even called "the most beautiful Chinese actress ever" by the then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai.

"I only see it when looking into the mirror. But how much time can one stare at the mirror in her life?" said Qin, in response to a question about beauty during the salon.

Her second marriage did not last long either. While the couple separated after less than seven years together, they never went through a divorce. When Jin was struck by a stomach illness, a result of over-drinking, Qin took care of him for more than 20 years despite her acting career picking up in the 1950s. In 1959, Qin played the lead character in three blockbuster films. Jin died from internal bleeding in the stomach in 1983.

Qin's role as mother was no less arduous. A year after she was publicly criticized and tortured for being an actress during the cultural revolution (1966-1976), her son was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

She said that the diagnosis was as much a sentence to her as it was to her son, adding that it served to "put out all her desires ever since". The condition caused her son to turn violent but Qin would not stop him from beating her. She only told him that he could not hit her on the face as she needed it to earn a living.

Qin later spent her life savings to buy an apartment where she could take better care of her son. In 2007, less than two years before the construction of the apartment was completed, her son passed away.

She never moved into the apartment.