Jackie Chan, who transformed himself from a Chinese film star into a Hollywood action comedy legend, trained at a Peking Opera school.

BBC: Chinese Hamlet in 'Jackie Chan style'

Prior to embarking on my legal career, I was a recording artist and songwriter (see website for a full history: www.tinab.tv) and studied opera at the Juilliard School in New York and with Maestro Vincent La Selva at the New York Grand Opera Company.

FORBES: Tina Baker - Tina Baker - Archive

"It's called opera, " her high school music teacher explained.

WSJ: Culture City: One Small Stumble on the Stage, One Giant Step to Stardom

In the early 1960s, he left South Africa, first going to London, then coming to the U.S. Harry Belafonte, whose calypso records had launched his career, sponsored Masekela's studies at Manhattan School of Music, where he played trumpet in the symphony and sang in the opera choir.

NPR: Hugh Masekela at the Tanglewood Jazz Festival

The movie follows a pair of male Beijing Opera performers, Cheng Dieyi (Leslie Cheung) and Duan Xiaolou (Zhang Fengyi), from their school days, in the nineteen-twenties and early thirties, to their farewell performance together, in 1977.

NEWYORKER: Farewell My Concubine