Born Yam Lee Chor (Chinese: 任麗初), Yam performed as a past-time with a Cantonese opera troupe since when still in grade school. When Yam was 14, her aunt (Chinese: 小叫天), another Cantonese opera actress, taught Yam the foundation courses. Very soon, Yam quit school and began her formal opera performance studies with Wong Lui Hap (Chinese: 黃侶俠), who was known for being the female version of Ma Sze Tsang.
Jade Flower (Chinese: 玉瓊花) was one of the very first co-stars as female leads on stage. Yam earned her keep, rose from the bottom rung and eventually became male lead at the age of 17 but switching between being male lead and playing second fiddle to Wong or other actresses, with more experience and more well-known, for another few years before venturing out on her own.
In 1939, Yam joined an all-female opera troupe (Chinese: 「群芳艷影」). Many troupes followed her first own (Chinese:「鏡花艷影」) with Tsui Yan Sam (Chinese: 徐人心) as co-star. For ten years, was stuck in Macau when her hometown in Guangdong fell to the Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
Yam played the male lead in many Cantonese opera stage productions in those years opposite many actresses, including Tsui Yan Sam (Chinese: 徐人心), Tam Lan Hing (Chinese: 譚蘭卿) and Tang Pik Wan (Chinese: 鄧碧雲). Meanwhile, she moved her family, including her younger (Chinese custom, actually paternal first cousins.) sister Yam Bing Yee (Chinese: 任冰兒) into her new home in Macau. With the financial help from Mr. Ho Yin, father of Edmund Ho, in Macau, she formed a new opera troupe called New Voice Opera Troupe (Chinese: 「新聲劇團」) with the following performers:
- Chan Yim Nung (Chinese: 陳艷儂), the Daan (Chinese: 旦)
- Au Yeung Kim (Chinese: 歐陽儉), the Cau (Chinese: 丑)
- Lang Chi Bak (Chinese: 靚次伯), the Zing (Chinese: 淨)
- Yam Bing Yee (Chinese: 任冰兒)
- Bak Sheut Sin (Chinese: 白雪仙)
