“During one of my early radio shows, someone phoned in to say that he liked my show and I realised that I could give people two hours of happiness, and that became my mission – to make people happy,” said Leung in a 2007 interview with the Post. “I want to make it a profession.”
His stage name, Sum-mei, comes from his early days in radio. In a 2009 talk show for Hong Kong broadcaster TVB, he revealed the nickname came from a staff member at CRHK who had pronounced his English name, Sammy, with a Cantonese twist.
In 1997, he arrived at a turning point in his radio hosting career: he got Kitty Yuen Siu-yee as a co-host. The popular duo have been entertaining listeners ever since with their playful dynamic and ruthless banter.
From 2001 to 2009, Leung hosted Sammy Moving, a radio show that contained various comedic segments which produced what were essentially Hong Kong Cantonese memes before memes were really a thing – some of which are still referenced today; 2001 also saw him begin teaching radio production and media studies at his alma mater.
In January 2006, he co-hosted TVB’s Miss Chinese International Pageant, which expanded his hosting experience to the screen.
That same year, in June, Leung’s career took a hit – one that was seen as being of his own doing. On So Fab, a radio show Leung and Yuen co-hosted from 2005 to 2009, the duo asked listeners to nominate “the most popular female artistes for indecent assault”.
It earned them reprimands from Hong Kong’s Equal Opportunities Commission, the city’s Education Bureau and several women’s organisations; and around 200 listeners filed complaints to the then-Hong Kong Broadcasting Authority.
CRHK made a public apology and suspended the co-hosts for two months without pay, during which time they were not allowed to take other work. The incident brought an end to Leung’s five years as a media studies lecturer at Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Leung said later that the incident changed his view “of many things”, but maintained that he was not generally known as being outspoken. “I wouldn’t worry about the reaction. I have actually been very careful all the time,” he said.
He also said he found it “very difficult to establish a career in the entertainment business if you are too serious”.
After his mandated two-month break, his career bounced back – radio hosting was, after all, not his only show business endeavour; he was breaking into acting.
Discussing his acting with the Post in 2007, Leung said: “I’m happy that audiences will get to see a different side of me [ …] the amusing side of me is like my thumb, maybe it’s shorter but it’s the one that audiences want to see. It’s not all of me, but it’s still me and the media exaggerates that side of me.”
Leung continues to appear frequently as a show host – in 2017, he began hosting his own reality series, Sammy on the Go, in which he travelled to various parts of Japan. The TVB programme wrapped in 2019.
Despite having worked for almost three decades in Hong Kong’s entertainment industry, Leung has kept his personal life largely out of the public eye.
In 2003, he revealed that he was soon to become a father for the first time – to the surprise of the Hong Kong public, which did not know that three years earlier he had married former child actress and television host Veronica Chan.
Asked later about his marital status, Leung – a devout Christian – said: “How can one have children before marriage? That’s not OK.” It has been said that he kept his marriage private out of respect for his wife. The couple welcomed their second child in 2006.
In a 2017 interview, Leung cried when talking about his father, who worked as a firefighter and a taxi driver, and his son, who had just left to study in the UK. He recalled being reminded of how his father must have felt driving him to school interviews in his teens.
Leung remains a presence on radio – he and Yuen host Good Morning King, one of CRHK’s most popular programmes, every weekday, as well as The Playtoy Mansion every Saturday night.