Zoe Tay Hui Gek (born 10 January 1968) is a Singaporean actress and former model. She has been referred to as the "Queen of Caldecott Hill" and "Ah Jie".
Tay has received four Star Awards for Best Actress. Tay holds the record for the most nominations for the Star Awards for Best Actress, with 15 nominations. She also shares the record for the most consecutive nominations in the category, having received seven consecutive nominations from 1995 to 2001 alongside Fann Wong and Rui En.
Early life
Tay is the sixth of seven children born to Teochew parents. She was three when her biological mother died in an accident. Her father remarried and had a daughter with Wong Pong Chin. Her father worked at a chicken and pig farm in Lim Chu Kang while her stepmother was a housewife. Tay attended Kay Hua Primary School and later, Yuan Ching Secondary School, where she completed her O-level examinations. She studied fashion design at the Baharuddin Vocational Institute.
When she was 13, she thought of using "Jenny" as her English name as people pronounced her hanyu pinyin surname Zheng as "Jenny". However her siblings didn't like it. She later found the name "Zoe" in a dictionary.
Career
As a teenager, Tay was her brothers' date when they had to bring a girl to school events and was told by her brothers to be more ladylike. She then attended an etiquette course which the organisers had also newly opened a modelling agency which then hired her. Tay then started out as a model at the age of 16. In 1987, she was named Model of The Year.
In 1988, Tay joined the inaugural Star Search, a reality talent search television show, by Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) to gain greater public exposure to launch her modelling career in Hong Kong or Japan. She would win the competition and was offered a three-year contract with SBC. While Tay had initially disliked acting, she began feeling passionate for her craft after her role in Crime and Passion in 1991. Her breakthrough performance as a materialistic young woman in Pretty Faces catapulted her into stardom. Her popularity was affirmed with a Top 10 Most Popular Female Artiste Award at the Star Awards every year for ten consecutive years since its inception in 1994. In 1996, Zoe won the Best Actress award for her role in The Golden Pillow at the annual Star Awards. In 2004, she was the first actress to have been awarded the All-Time Favourite Artiste. Zoe was the first female artiste to launch a coffee table book titled "Zoe's Coffee Table", commissioned by Mediacorp.
Other than television series, Tay also forayed into films. In 2010, she starred opposite Hong Kong actor Kenny Ho in Love Cuts, playing the role of a terminally ill woman who has breast cancer. In 2013, she appeared in her first fully English-speaking role in Mister John with Irish star Aidan Gillen.
Tay has collaborated with many artistes in her various projects. Her on-screen chemistry with Li Nanxing in The Unbeatables series and other serials has put them in the list of the Top 5 Best Onscreen Couples at the Star Awards 25th Drama Anniversary show. In 2015, she collaborated for the first time with Huang Biren, in The Dream Makers II.
Due to her contributions to the television industry in Singapore, a wax figurine was modelled after her by Madame Tussauds Singapore, and has been on display in the museum since 2014.
At the Star Awards 2021, Tay won her fourth Best Actress award for the drama, My Guardian Angels, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Best Actress awards.
Personal life
Tay is married to Philip Chionh, a former Republic of Singapore Air Force pilot. They were engaged in 1995 at the peak of her career, and held their wedding ceremony in 2001 at a church wedding and western-styled dinner at Ritz Carlton Hotel. They have three sons together.
Known for her charitable persona, Tay is a regular performer at various charity shows. Tay is also an avid dog lover and has adopted and fostered several rescue dogs, Tong Tong, Snowball and Pepper.
