Bai Ling Teen Actress for Chengdu, China

Bai Ling (meaning "White Spirit") was born in Chengdu, China, on October 10, 1970, during that country's Cultural Revolution. Her father was a music teacher, and her mother was a dancer and stage actress. As a result of their creative professions, the government cruelly treated Bai Ling's parents, and so the infant Bai Ling was sent to Szechwan to be raised by her grandmother.

While Bai Ling sang in her school choir as a child, it wasn't until she turned 14 and became a "soldier" in the People's Liberation Army that she took to the stage; she was put in a performance troupe sent to entertain soldiers in Tibet for three years. Like her parents before her, Bai Ling clashed with authority, and she was accused of insubordination for using tobacco and alcohol. By the end of her army service, Bai Ling suffered from depression and was hospitalized.

For many people, just getting out of communist China and starting a new life in America is enough of an accomplishment -- but not for Bai Ling. Though already a film star in China by the late 1980s, Bai Ling came to the United States looking to work in Western cinema.

After small parts in The Crow and Nixon, Ling had an important role in Red Corner, which was, at the same time, her breakthrough in the West and her break with the East. Since then, she's proven herself in nearly every kind of film, from Wild Wild West to Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith.

Bai Ling first riveted American audiences in Red Corner (1997), then went on to take parts in Wild Wild West (1999), Anna and the King (1999), and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004). If you missed her appearances on Touched by an Angel and The Chris Isaak Show, you can catch her in Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith (2005).