Allen Chao is a Taiwanese singer, actor, songwriter, and television host born in Tainan, Taiwan.

In his third year of junior high school, Chao suffered a concussion from a train accident involving a passenger train from the Taiwan Railway Administration, leading to over two months of recovery. Despite recommendations to drop out of school, he took the entrance exam for public and private schools in Tainan and was accepted into K'un-shan Industrial Vocational School (崑山工業專科學校). However, he lost interest in his studies and sought to transfer. After attempting to enroll in another program that did not accept transfer students that year, he continued in mechanical engineering at Hua-hsia Industrial Vocational School (華夏工業專科學校). It was during his second year that he began teaching himself to play the guitar, which became his primary instrument. Following his military service, he held various jobs, including clerk, salesman, and roles in a publishing house, product export, and program production.

Chao's music career began during the peak of the campus folk song movement in the 1970s when he released an album with Li-ko Records (麗歌唱片) and engaged in songwriting. His acting debut came in October 1979 with a role in the stage play "Chu Han Fengyun" (楚漢風雲), where he met his girlfriend, Tai Yi Yu (戴一瑜), who worked at a law firm. In 2014, he became the father-in-law of Kao Yuan Yuan (高圓圓).

(Source: MyDramaList) Edit Biography