[Macau … ever want to go there? This may change your opinion. How can you not admire someone whose name is “Teddy Yip?” SB SM]
WORDS BY TIM STRUBY
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BERNARD BAKALIAN
VICTORYJOURNAL.COM
Macau, 1959. When author Ian Fleming landed in this 11-square-mile, Portuguese-controlled city situated on the western bank of China’s Pearl River Delta, the man responsible for James Bond didn’t find a thriving port so much as a seedy cesspool of gamblers, opium traders, prostitutes, hustlers, arms dealers, and shady characters of every imaginable sort. Fleming had come to Ou Mun (“trading gate” as the original settlers called Macau) to research his travel guide, Thrilling Cities, and to meet a potential real-life Bond villain: Dr. Pedro Jose Lobo, a reputedly unscrupulous magnate rumored to have a grip on much of the world’s gold trade. Macau lived up to its salacious reputation—Lobo did not. Instead of being a Goldfinger, the doctor possessed a very un-villainous Catholic art collection and a friendly, respectful demeanor.
If it was inspiration Fleming sought, he should have visited Teddy Yip instead.
Known in his later years as The Grand Old Man of Macau, Yip was a fabulously successful businessman, a legendary swordsman, and a world-renowned racecar driver cum team owner cum automotive aficionado. He spoke six Chinese dialects in addition to English, German, Dutch, Thai, Malay, and French. A man who “never met a party he didn’t like,” Yip was as comfortable in a hot tub with three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Unser as he was hosting Henry Kissinger on a yacht. Countless individuals have amassed bigger fortunes than Teddy Yip, but few people enjoyed their riches more. “He absolutely lived up to his reputation,” says son Teddy Yip Jr. “The parties, the events, and especially the racing. He lived life to the fullest.”
Teddy Yip was born in 1913 and raised in Medan, on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, then part of the colonial Dutch East Indies. At 17, his parents (of Chinese and Indonesian origin) sent him to study in Holland. But he soon returned to the Far East where he worked as a salesman for the National Cash Register Company, made a bundle trading rice in Burma, and eventually settled in Hong Kong.
Then, two events changed Yip’s future—and Macau’s. First, Yip entered the 1955 Macau Grand Prix. At the time, it wasn’t much of a race and Yip wasn’t much of a driver; he didn’t even make it through the novice trials. But he’d fallen under the spell of auto racing’s siren song. Although Yip would compete in the Macau GP another 12 times, (his best result a third place in 1963, in a Jaguar E-Type), the savvy businessman gradually realized he was better suited to the sidelines. In 1973, Theodore Racing, with its iconic red and white cars, was born.
Over the next 20 years, Yip became a staple in grandstands and paddocks across the globe. Few could forget his Errol Flynn mustache, Brylcreem’d hair, and the smile that could light up a dank garage. Yip teams lined up on the grid in Formula 1, European Formula 5000, CART/Indycar, Formula 2, and Formula 3. His drivers included Vern Schuppan, Alan Jones, Bobby Unser, Roberto Guerrero, Rick Mears, and the great Ayrton Senna, who won Macau in 1983.
Yip’s most lasting contribution to the sport was not track times or trophies but the commitment to his hometown race. The inaugural 1954 Macau GP had been nothing more than a glorified treasure hunt on wheels, but Yip brought attention to the event over the years, attracting high-wattage teams. Today the 6.2 kilometer Guia Circuit, with its lengthy harborside straights and harrowing twists and turns through Macau’s narrow streets, has become a rite of passage for F1 champions such as Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton.
The second seminal event of Yip’s life took place in 1961. He and his brother-in-law Stanley Ho (along with two other men) founded a company called Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau (STDM). The following year they won a $410,000 bid to take over Macau’s gambling monopoly. Up to that point, the city’s centerpiece had been the Central Hotel, which in Fleming’s Thrilling Cities is described as “a nine-story skyscraper, by far the largest building in Macau…devoted solely to the human vices.” Ho and Yip—the Far East’s very own Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky—set out to reinvent Macau.
In 1962, STDM opened their first casino in the Hotel Estoril. Four years later they wowed tourists with the Macau Palace, a floating casino on the Inner Harbor (as seen in The Man with the Golden Gun). Then, on June 11, 1970, Hotel Lisboa opened its doors. A three-story casino adjacent to a 12-story hotel, it was like nothing Macau had ever seen. Its dome dazzled with a rainbow of purple, orange, green, and blue lights, while the interior was gilded with a distinct Chinese aesthetic: call it Versailles meets the Forbidden City, if you’re being kind. The success was immediate. Revenue poured in, eventually making Hotel Lisboa the world’s highest-grossing casino. By the early ’90s, one couldn’t step off the ferry from Hong Kong without detecting Yip’s influence. He had a piece of the Macau Jockey Club (horse racing), the Canidrome (greyhound racing), restaurants, car dealerships, the lottery, high-speed ferries, and, if the rumors were to be believed, the finest brothels in Asia.
Stories abound. There were the annual pre–Grand Prix cocktail parties where he’d hand out $100 casino chips to all the race volunteers. There was the 1981 bash he threw on the Queen Mary, where he hired cranes to lift Theodore Racing’s new F1 cars onto the deck so his 800 guests could get a better look. Yip once paid Macau’s entire electricity bill. He liked to refer to himself in the third person.
And then there were the ladies. Lots of ladies. Other than racecars, Yip’s true passion was the fairer sex. He fathered a child when he was 69 years old. At his 75th birthday party, he was presented with a T-shirt that read, “So Many Women So Little Time.” He reportedly held team meetings from his bed with his gal du jour by his side. For his 77th birthday Yip outdid himself, tabloids claimed, dropping a cool million to fly 52 of his exes (and their families) to a four-day bash in Acapulco; Champagne flowed like water, while Yip handed out gold watches and pendants, telling each and every ex, “You were my favorite.” He probably wasn’t lying.
Teddy Yip died in 2003 at the age of 90. Since his passing, Macau has undergone a facelift. In 2002, STDM’s casino monopoly ended and American moguls Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn swooped in, creating shining monoliths like the 10.5-million-square-foot Venetian (the largest casino in the world). Last year, Macau’s casinos helped attract nearly 30 million tourists and generate $45 billion in over- all casino revenue, six times that of Las Vegas. If Teddy Yip took a stroll through this new Macau, he would look like a relic, an aberration, perhaps even a character from the pages of an old spy novel. But would he lose his trademark smile over it? Not a chance. “Today never comes back,” Yip used to say. “You’ve got to enjoy it.”
Victory Journal
Victory Journal is a print and digital publication exploring the intersection of sport and culture through human storytelling, personal essays, and bold visuals—eschewing stats and fandom for drama, glory, and creativity from around the world.