Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing was born in Kowloon, Hong Kong. His born name was Cheung Fat-chung, which was later changed to Cheung Kwok-wing. Cheung was the youngest of 10 children in a middle-class family. His father was a fairly well-known tailor, whose customers included the American actors William Holden and Cary Grant. His parents divorced when he was quite young.
At the age of 13, he was sent to England as a boarder at Norwich School and faced racial discrimination at the school. He worked as a bartender at his relatives' restaurant and sung during the weekends. It was around this period that he chose his name, "Leslie". According to Cheung, he chose this name because "I love the film Gone with the Wind. And I like Leslie Howard. The name can be a man's or woman's, it's very unisex, so I like it."
In several of his interviews, Cheung stated that he had a fairly unhappy childhood. "I didn't have a happy childhood. Arguments, fights and we didn't live together; I was brought up by my granny. ... What I would say most affected me as a child, was that my parents were not at home with me. As a young kid, one could not always understand why his parents weren't at home. This made me depressed sometimes."
Cheung attended Leeds University in northern England, where he studied textile management. He dropped out of Leeds University at the end of his first year in 1976, when his father fell ill. After his father's recovery, Cheung did not return to England to complete his studies.
In 1976, Cheung won second prize at Asian Music Contest held by Rediffusion Television Co. (RTV). He signed a contract with RTV (RTV subsequently became Asia Television Company (ATV)) and began his career in the entertainment industry. He also signed a music contract with Polydor Records, releasing Day Dreaming (1977) and Lover's Arrow (1979).
The early days of his career were not easy. He was once booed off the stage during a public performance, and his first two albums were not welcomed by the public. He left Polydor Records at the end of his contract. Cheung's first film, The Erotic Dream of the Red Chamber in 1978 was a soft porn film, marking a low point in his career. Cheung later stated that he was unaware of the sexual nature of the film when he signed the contract.
During the 70s and 80s, he appeared in a number of TV dramas that helped turn him into a household name in South East Asia. In 1982, Cheung joined Capital Artists upon the end of his contract with RTV. It was at Capital Artist that Florence Chan became his music agent and remained as such through his demise. In 1983, Cheung released his first hit song, The Wind Blows On.
Cheung's movie career was a little slower to take off. He appeared in supporting roles in his second and third movies Encore (1980) and On Trial (1981). However, his acting talent was soon recognized with his nomination for the Hong Kong Film Awards's Best Supporting Actor for his role in On Trial. Subsequently after this nomination, he began to star as the leading man in Teenage Dreamers (1982) and has held the lead role in almost every movie he had been in since.
From the early 1980s through 1986, most of the movies in which he had starred were teenage movies. Among them, Nomad (1982) are widely considered by film critic as the representation of the Hong Kong "New Wave" films. Cheung's role as Louis in Nomad won him his first Best Actor nomination of the Hong Kong Film Awards. Later, Cheung stated that he considers Nomad as his first "real" movie.
In 1986, he joined Cinepoly Records Hong Kong and released the album Summer Romance in 1987. Summer Romance became the Best Selling CD of the Year and IFPI Best Selling Album in Hong Kong. In 1988, he composed one of his most famous songs Silence is Golden.
From 1986 to 1989, Cheung acted in a number of movies that are considered as Hong Kong classics by film critics and Asian movie fans. In 1986, Cheung co-starred with Chow Yun Fat in A Better Tomorrow (directed by John Woo), which was widely considered as a trend starter for Hong Kong triad movies in the 1980s. He also starred in the sequel, A Better Tomorrow II (1987). In 1987, Cheung starred in Stanley Kwan's Rouge. His performance in these movies won him two Best Actor nomination from Hong Kong Film Awards. The success of A Better Tomorrow made his name known in the Japanese and South Korea film markets.
Cheung starred in several more important movies in the 1990s. As a versatile actor, Cheung also acted in many comedies. Although Cheung quit his career as a pop singer from 1989 to 1995, he continued his music career as a composer. He composed more than ten songs during the time. In 1993, he won Best Original Movie Song Award from Golden Horse Film Festival. As a composer, Cheung got four nominations of Best Original Movie Song Award from Golden Horse Film Festival and two nominations of Best Original Film Song from Hong Kong Film Festival.
In 1996, Cheung released possibly his most highly acclaimed album, Red. In 1998, Cheung released his first album in mandarin (and also the only one originally in the language), Printemps.
In 1999, Cheung started a music company, Apex Music, signing a distribution contract with Universal Music Group (UMG). In 2000, Cheung was awarded the Golden Needle award (lifetime achievement award in Cantopop music). In the same year, Cheung had been assigned as the "Music Ambassador" of Composors And Authors Society of Hong Kong (CASH) until his demise.
Cheung was bisexual and once said: "It's more appropriate to say I'm bisexual. I've had girlfriends. When I was 22 or so, I asked my girlfriend Teresa Mo (his frequent co-star in TVB serials of the time) to marry me."
Despite numerous tabloid rumors, he denied his sexual orientation for the first half of his career. After his immigration to Canada (in Vancouver, British Columbia), his stance relaxed considerably. In the early 1990s he became one of the few Hong Kong actors who dared play gay characters onscreen.
In 1995 a Hong Kong tabloid published a photo of Cheung with another man, Daffy Tong Hok-Tak. In a 1997 concert, Cheung openly revealed that Tong was his "most beloved" after his mother. The Hong Kong media eventually accepted the two men's relationship and gave Tong the nickname Tong Tong. After Cheung's death, Tong published a full-page obituary in a Hong Kong newspaper, in which he was listed as a surviving spouse, and was named the executor of Cheung's estate.
Cheung committed suicide on April 1, 2003. He leapt from the 24th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, located in the Central district of Hong Kong Island (Corliss, 2003). He left a suicide note: "Depression! Many thanks to all the friends. Many thanks to Professor Felice Lieh Mak (Cheung's last psychiatrist). This year had been so tough. I can't stand it anymore. Many thanks to Mr. Tong. Many thanks to my family. Many thanks to Fat Sister (Lydia Shum Din-ha). I have not done a single piece of bad thing in my whole life. Why does it have to be like this?". He was 46 years old.
The day after Leslie's death, his long time partner, Tong, confirmed that Cheung suffered from (clinical) depression and had been seeing psychiatrists for treatment for almost a year. He also revealed that Cheung had attempted suicide in 2002.
