Ruan was China's leading actress in the 1930's. Her penultimate film, _A New Woman (1934)_, portrayed the 1934 suicide of silent film actress 'Ai Xia(I)' as being due to mistreatment in the Chinese press. It was a success in the film critic community but overall, the press was offended by the negative light in which the film depicted it. Ruan was soon despised by the press and her affairs with two men were publicized. This, along with a lifetime of personal problems, led her to take her life with an overdose of sleeping pills. She wrote in her last letters that "Gossip is a fearful thing." More than 300,000 attended her funeral and at least three women committed suicide themselves soon after, giving Ruan's death as the reason.
