Haing S. Ngor

This article is about the actor and physician. For the Tibetan Buddhist school, see Ngor.

Haing S. Ngor
File:Haing S. Ngor.jpg
Spouse	My-Huoy Ngor

Dr. Haing S. Ngor (Traditional Chinese: 吳漢, March 22, 1940 – February 25, 1996) was a Cambodian American physician, actor and author who is best known for winning the 1985 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the movie The Killing Fields, in which he portrayed journalist and refugee Dith Pran in 1970s Cambodia, under the rule of the Khmer Rouge. His mother was Cambodian and his father was Chinese.

Life under the Khmer Rouge

Born in Samrong Young, Cambodia, Ngor trained as a surgeon and gynecologist. He was practicing in the capital, Phnom Penh, in 1975 when Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge seized control of the country and proclaimed it Democratic Kampuchea. As an ethnic Chinese he faced persecution and he was compelled to conceal his education and medical skills (and indeed the fact that he wore eyeglasses) to avoid the new regime's intense hostility to intellectuals and professionals. He was expelled from Phnom Penh, along with the bulk of its two million inhabitants, as part of the Khmer Rouge's "Year Zero" socialist experiment and imprisoned in a concentration camp along with his wife, My-Huoy, who subsequently died during childbirth in the camp. Although a gynecologist, he was unable to treat his wife who required a Cesarean section as he would have been exposed and both he and his wife would very probably have been killed. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979, Ngor worked as a doctor in a refugee camp in Thailand and left with his niece for the United States on August 30, 1980. Ngor was not able to resume medical practice in the U.S. He never remarried.

In 1988, he wrote Haing Ngor: A Cambodian Odyssey, describing his life under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In the second edition Survival in the Killing Fields, Roger Warner, Ngor's co-author, adds an epilogue telling the story of Ngor's life after winning the Academy Award.

The "Dr. Haing S. Ngor Foundation" was founded in his honor in 1997 to assist in raising funds for Cambodian aid. As part of his humanitarian efforts, Ngor built an elementary school and operated a small sawmill that provided jobs and an income for local families. Ngor's niece, Sophia Ngor Demetri, who testified at the trial of his murderers and with whom he arrived to the U.S., is the current President of the Foundation.

Actor

Ngor, despite having no previous acting experience, was cast as Dith Pran in The Killing Fields, a role for which he later won three awards, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Ngor also appeared in other movies and TV shows, most memorably in Oliver Stone's Heaven & Earth and the Vanishing Son miniseries. He also guest-starred in an episode of Miami Vice called "The Savage / Duty and Honor".

Murder

On February 25, 1996, Ngor was shot to death outside his home in Chinatown, which is located in downtown Los Angeles, California. Ngor was buried at the Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, Los Angeles. Many Cambodians claimed they had a stake in his estate, with one woman claiming he had married her after coming to the US. Most of Ngor's Cambodian assets went to his brother, Chan Sarun, while his American assets were used up in legal fees staving off claims to his estate.

Charged with the murder were three reputed members of the "Oriental Lazy Boyz" street gang who had a prior history of snatching purses and jewelry. They were tried together in the Superior Court of Los Angeles, though their cases were heard by three separate juries. Prosecutors argued that they killed Ngor because, after handing over his gold Rolex watch willingly he refused to give them a locket that contained a photo of his deceased wife, My-Huoy. Defense attorneys suggested the murder was a politically motivated killing carried out by sympathizers of the Khmer Rouge but offered no evidence to support this theory.

Some criticized the theory that Ngor was killed in a bungled robbery, pointing to the USD2,900 in his car that had been left behind, and the fact that the thieves had not rifled his pockets. Why the thieves would have demanded his locket has never been answered; Ngor typically wore the locket next to his skin under his clothing, so it would not have been in plain sight. As of 2003, the locket has not been recovered.

All three were found guilty. Tak Sun Tan was sentenced to 56 years to life; Indra Lim to 26 years to life; Jason Chan to life without parole. In 2004, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California granted Tak Sun Tan's habeas corpus petition, finding that prosecutors had manipulated the jury's sympathy by presenting false evidence. This decision was reversed and the conviction was ultimately upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in July 2005.

Ngor survived incredible dangers during his life in Cambodia only to die violently in his adopted homeland. But he told a New York Times reporter after the release of The Killing Fields, "If I die from now on, OK! This film will go on for a hundred years."

Dith Pran, whom Ngor portrayed in The Killing Fields, said of Ngor's death, "He is like a twin with me...He is like a co-messenger and right now I am alone." Pran died on March 30, 2008, of pancreatic cancer.

In Popular Culture

• An episode of The Simpsons contained a gag in which Homer tries to flush an Academy Award with the engraving "Dr. Haing S. Ngor". After Ngor's murder and out of respect for him, the image was altered in syndicated episodes and in the Seventh Season DVD to have Don Ameche's name on it (Ameche won the Supporting Actor award in 1985, the year after Ngor won; Ameche died in 1993, three years before Ngor's death).

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Other notes
1984	The Killing Fields	Dith Pran	(as Dr. Haing S Ngor) Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award; Golden Globe
1986	Dung fong tuk ying (Eastern Condors)	Yeung Lung
1989	Vietnam War Story: The Last Days	Major Huyen	segment "The Last Outpost"
	The Iron Triangle	Colonel Tuong, NVA
1990	Vietnam, Texas	Wong
1991	Ambition	Tatay
1993	My Life	Mr. Ho
	Heaven & Earth	Papa
	Fortunes of War	Khoy Thuon
1994	The Dragon Gate	Sensei
1996	Hit Me	Billy Tungpet

Template:S-awards

Further reading

• Ngor, Haing with Roger Warner. A Cambodian Odyssey. Macmillian Publishing Company, 1987. ISBN 0-02-589330-0.
• Ngor, Haing with Roger Warner. Survival in the Killing Fields. Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003. ISBN 0786713151.

External links

• Haing Ngor Foundation website
• Yahoo! Biography
• CNN story on his death
• Haing S. Ngor at IMDb