Chairman Actor--Michael Tao

Because Tao is a real-life company president, he says "I hate having to play the role of leading businessman in the theater."

Tao, who has over 300 theater performances under his belt, has played all kinds of roles on stage. Once he was nominated for a Golden Bell Award for best male lead. The photos show him performing in A Passionate Night in Shanghai (facing page) and City Light (left).

No silver spoon

Tao sometimes jokes that having been born into a supposedly well-to-do family, he should have entered the world with a silver spoon in his mouth, but because of problems with the family business, it was only a plastic funnel.

Michael Tao was born in 1946. His father, Tao Tzu-hou, carved out a career as an entrepreneur in the fabric industry when the Chiang family was ruling the nation.

At 25, Tao entered the family business and prepared himself to take over the reins. However, because his father had invested unwisely in the synthetic leather business, there was a huge debt remaining with interest payments totaling more than NT$100 million per year. Fifteen years later, he was still trying to scrape together enough cash to keep things afloat. After barely surviving this period of hardship, finally in 1985 the crunch came and company checks started to bounce, creating a certain amount of dismay in Taiwan's business community.

"Those days were truly awful!" Tao remembers being hounded by creditors, and having to rush from one to another begging for more time to pay. Things changed, however. Relaxing in a restaurant one Sunday morning, he ordered a dish of three-treasure rice. The exquisite flavors of the bacon, chicken and smoked duck were so pleasurable that Tao was suddenly moved by his momentary happiness to promise himself that, regardless of his economic desperation, he should never forget to enjoy life to the full.

Recalling this period, Tao says he was like a headless fly rushing about without any direction. Like his father before him, he was a kind man and never hardhearted enough to lay off a large number of employees. He knew his company's survival was more important than the welfare of any individual, but could just never bring himself to sack people. Since gradually handing the business over to his own children, he says candidly that good management needs a certain skill, but confesses it's a skill that he doesn't possess.

Every Sunday Michael Tao, chairman of Chickabiddy clothing, enters a sound booth to host the music show Papa Tao--On the Road. It chiefly introduces country music. Its loyal fan base includes many in the 35-55 age group.

Shandong tough guy

In the year he turned 47, Tao discovered by pure chance that he had a talent for the theater, a revelation that has changed his life and become a source of great happiness.

At the time, Tao's partner Ying Hsiao-ping was involved in a group of businessmen's wives who were planning to perform a play. Lacking actors, a number of company presidents were forced by their wives into the roles of guest performers. Most were perpetually busy either in meetings and social engagements or playing golf. They were really not interested in the play and were often absent from rehearsals. Except Tao, who took great interest. In fact, even when there was important company business to deal with, he would ask the buyer to wait.

In his first play for the Performance Workshop, Chatting in the Traffic Circle, he played a tough guy from Shandong, and was highly praised by director Stan Lai. This play opened the door to a new life in professional theater. He has now made over 300 performances, in plays including Comedy in the Kitchen, Red Sky, Whose Wife is in the Wrong Bed?

In 1999, he tried his hand at television drama. With director Teng An-ning, Running Away portrayed Tao's real life story--an accidental journey from chairman to actor. Tao played himself and for that role was nominated for best actor in the Golden Bell Awards.

In the more than ten years since he discovered the theater, he has played emperors, company presidents, priests, and even alcoholics and a user of prostitutes. Two years ago, in another TV drama A Man at Fifty, he played a middle-aged man who, looking for his lost youth, has sex with a high-school girl. He was again nominated for the Golden Bell best actor award.

"Unless you've actually played a role on stage or on television, it's very difficult to imagine or communicate the joy of the experience," Tao says. A play from rehearsal to performance takes over six months. It's like entering another world.

Michael Tao has thrown himself into photography in recent years. Apart from including his own photos in his company calendar, he has also founded Tao Yeh magazine, in whose pages he shares his life in music, theater and photography.

On the road

Tao belonged to the era before campus folk songs, and in his junior high school he started his own band. He is presently the host of music program Papa Tao--On the Road heard on the Voice of Taipei.

In the past seven years, he has had only one day off--last autumn, when he had to have an operation. When he has to travel overseas, he pre-records the program before he leaves. Apart from his travels, he is always in the studio on time every weekend, introducing 1970s American country music, the street singers that he met in New Orleans, tunes that he heard in the Nashville Cowboy Church, and the music of his youth, like the Beatles and Elvis Presley.

Tao says, "Every song and every singer I introduce have been a part of my life, so for me the time spent in the studio is an absolute joy." In his study (only about 13 square meters), there are stacked around 5000 CDs. He often hides himself away in this little room--his secret oasis-- to prepare music for the program. "Here I keep only the things that make me happy. Anything related to business is excluded."

As part of this love of music, Tao has formed a band with folk singers Ma Chao-chun, Li Ming-te and Huang Chung-kun, and they're presently preparing a new live show--singing a few songs and chatting with the audience.

Tao, who has over 300 theater performances under his belt, has played all kinds of roles on stage. Once he was nominated for a Golden Bell Award for best male lead. The photos show him performing in A Passionate Night in Shanghai (facing page) and City Light (left).

Happy for the rest of his life

Recently, Tao was invited to make a speech about the experience of being president of a major corporation. But being so immersed in the fun of the theater and his other activities, he named his speech "Happy for the Rest of My Life," a title that frightened off his hosts somewhat with its reference to the end of life.

Tao cites the theater, music and travel as his greatest loves. After his operation, he reorganized the order of this list a little, so that recently travel has become number one. In the last two or three years, he has chased the origins of the songs he sings and plays, traveling to the sacred places of music. With his wife, he has visited Nashville, the capital of American country music, New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, and the hometown of the Beatles--Liverpool in England. "Considering my business responsibilities, time for travel is necessarily limited, so I grab the opportunity whenever it arises and enjoy my life to the full," Tao says. He cherishes the fact that for the rest of his life, he can live for himself.

"My many friends in the business world often tell me that they're envious of my lifestyle." When this happens, Tao explains to them that it's not a matter of luck: anyone can make it happen for themselves. "If you have the will, tomorrow you can be as happy and contented as I am!" Tao has discovered in the theater and in his travels that a lot of young actors work hard in performance, and then travel to dream destinations to stay a few months with only a little money. When they've spent the money, they come back to the theater. Overseas, Tao notes, a lot of travelers are like this: they're not rich people. Tao feels that life is so short and often so full of disappointment that if you have a dream to follow, you should do it without delay. To share these ideas, he publishes a quarterly magazine Tao Yeh (cultivating the mind and being happy), communicating his special ideas of how to follow the dream and achieve sublime contentment--Papa Tao is on his road.

At Chickabiddy's 30th anniversary celebration, Tao (at left) played Charlie Chaplin in a skit with his wife and son.