Rebecca Pan turns 93 this December. When Tatler arrives at her apartment in Ho Man Tin for the interview in mid-July, the actress pushes herself up shakily from her chair. She says with an apologetic smile, “My body isn’t too well these days. I can’t stand up to greet you.” Despite her outward frailty, her hearty laugh, effervescent personality and candy pink locks interlacing her silver hair reveal traces of the daring, stylish, modern starlet that she was decades ago.
The name may not ring a bell today, but Pan was a celebrated multilingual singer in Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s who was fundamental in putting the city’s art scene on the international map, especially when mainland China opened its borders to the western world in the late 1970s. She is also a fashion icon known for wearing
