Godfrey Gao

Godfrey Gao was a Canadian actor born on September 22, 1984 in Taipei, Taiwan. The son of a Taiwanese father and a Malaysian mother, Gao and his family moved to Vancouver when he was a child. Raised there, Gao attended Capilano University in Vancouver before returning to Taiwan in 2004 to begin a modeling career. He made his acting and television debut on the Taiwanese series "Magicians of Love" (TTV, 2006), and joined the main cast of another show, "Bull Fighting" (TTV, 2007-08) the next year. Gao made his film debut in the Tsui Hark-directed Chinese film "All About Women" (2008) and provided the Mandarin language voice over for Ken in the Taiwanese release of "Toy Story 3" (2010). In 2011, Gao became the first Asian male to model for Louis Vuitton. Gao then landed, potentially, his most recognizable role, certainly in the west, as Magnus Bane in the young adult novel adaptation "The Moral Instruments: City of Bones" (2013). The same year, he starred in the Chinese series "Never Give Up Dodo" (tv.sohu, 2013). Gao joined the main cast of a Chinese TV series adaptation of the classic Chinese novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" called "God of War, Zhao Yun" (Hunan TV, 2016). One of his most prominent roles in China or Taiwan was as Xie Yize in the Chinese fantasy film "Legend of the Ancient Sword" (2018). Godfrey Gao died on November 27, 2019 in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China at the age of 35, suffering a heart attack while filming the Chinese reality competition series "Chase Me" (Zhejiang, 2019). Gao had reportedly been filming intense physical activities for 17 hours straight when he collapsed on set. The series filming was halted in the uproar following his death.