The two married and moved to Hong Kong, where Wing-hong became an eminent architect. He attended Cambridge University and met Scott in London. Kwan Wing-hong was the son of lawyer Kwan King-sun and Juliann Loke Yuen-ying, daughter of Loke Yew. Those were great times.Nancy Kwan and her father, Kwan Wing-hong, 1956īorn in Hong Kong on May 19, 1939, and growing up in Kowloon Tong, Kwan is the Eurasian daughter of Kwan Wing-hong, a Cantonese architect and Marquita Scott, a European model of English and Scottish ancestry. Well they were really surprised when Bernie started chewing them out in perfect mandarin. The ladies laughed and started talking behind our backs. Me and my friend being Black and Bernie who looked white with blond hair and freckles just really looked out of place. One of the stories I tell my daughters is when Bernie, my friend and I were shopping in Chinatown and stopped at a store for some herbs,the Asian ladies at the store did not want to attend to us. I tried it at home: I only lasted a week. I remember him showing me where he slept sometimes…it was a grass mat on the floor and a brick for a pillow…I know it was crazy, but we were all a little crazy back then. I remember visiting his home and working out with him there on his wing chun wooden dummy.He was really dedicated to the martial arts at that time. I met Bernie when I was a teenager learning martial arts. Celebration of a Life is a wonderful way for Bernie’s memory to live on, not just for his mother but for her fans and his. It saddens me that she lost her only child at such a young age. She’s been compared to Audrey Hepburn, but to me she’s even more girl-next-door. Nancy Kwan is one of my favorite actresses.
I also enjoyed the photographs of Nancy, Bernie, and Norbert as well as movie posters featuring Bernie. Bernie’s poems, paintings, sculptures, and sketches fill many pages, as do letters written to Nancy and Norbert after Bernie’s death. The book includes not only a preface by Nancy Kwan, but also a letter by Norbert to Bernie’s paternal grandmother in Austria. Four years later, on June 5, 1996, Bernie died. The couple married before Devorah passed away in 1992.
Bernie was advised to get tested and learned shortly afterward that he, too, had contracted AIDS. After Nancy married director Norbert Meisel, they moved to Los Angeles.Īs a young man, Bernie met and fell in love with an older woman who discovered she had full-blown AIDS after they began their relationship. Bernie attended school in Hong Kong from the age of nine until he was 16. Sometime after the two split up, Nancy moved with Bernie to Hong Kong to care for her sick father. Nancy Kwan’s first husband was an Austrian ski instructor named Peter Pock. In his adult years, he was a successful Hollywood stuntman. Because the film was “physically demanding”, Nancy was sure Bernie received his love of stunts and martial arts as far back as in the womb. In the preface I read how Nancy Kwan learned she was pregnant with Bernie while filming Tamahine in the UK and Tahiti.
The inscription page shows a beautiful photo of Nancy with young Bernie, blond hair and all. This week I read that book.Ĭelebration of a Life: Memories of My Son (N &N Publications, 1997) is more scrapbook than narrative, but in this case it totally works. When I did a little research, I learned she had written a book about her late son, Bernie Pock. Several weeks ago I wrote about the World of Suzie Wong and my admiration of Nancy Kwan.