Haing S. Ngor

Cambodian-born actor, activist, and physician

• Born: March 22, 1940
• Place of Birth: Samrong Yong, Cambodia
• Died: February 25, 1996
• Place of Death: Los Angeles, California

• Pronunciation: HANG SOM-nang NOR

Through his ongoing involvement in various humanitarian causes and his acting roles, Haing Ngor helped to bring awareness of the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s to a wider public. He won an Academy Award for his work in The Killing Fields and thus became one of the few highly visible Cambodian actors in the American film industry.

Areas of achievement: Activism, entertainment, social issues

Early Life

Haing Somnang Ngor was born in the farming village of Samrong Yong, Cambodia, in 1940, although later birth years have also been suggested. He was one of seven children born to a sawmill owner. Details concerning Ngor’s early life are vague. He was reputedly the son of a Khmer mother and an ethnic Chinese father.

Ngor served as a Cambodian army surgeon and then ran a successful obstetrics/gynecology clinic in Phnom Penh until the Communist-led Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in 1975. Led by dictator Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge strove to return the country they now called Democratic Kampuchea to a permanent agrarian state (which they dubbed “Year Zero”). They eliminated all intellectual influences, which put Ngor in great peril as an educated person. Like millions of his countrymen, he was taken from the city and marched out into the countryside to perform brutal forced labor. To avoid persecution, he assumed the persona of an uneducated taxi driver. He even discarded his eyeglasses to avoid being exposed as literate.

Life’s Work

Inadequate food rations brought Ngor close to death from starvation. He was accused of trying to steal food and for that the Khmer Rouge cut off an inch of one finger. Another prisoner revealed Ngor’s true identity as a doctor. He was tortured twice, but never admitted his profession.

Ngor’s wife, Chang My Hoa, was imprisoned in the camps with him. On July 2, 1978, she died in childbirth while Ngor stood helplessly by. With nothing at his disposal, he could not use his medical training to save her. His parents and all but two brothers had been killed at the hands of the Khmer Rouge as well.

With the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 following an invasion by Vietnamese forces, Haing Ngor escaped into Thailand. While there, he practiced medicine for the first time in four years in various refugee camps. He and a niece were admitted to the United States in 1980, but he was never able to use his Cambodian medical license. Ngor first took a job as a security guard in Los Angeles and began counseling other Cambodian refugees in how to find jobs.

Ngor became famous when he was cast in the 1984 film The Killing Fields, based on the true experiences of journalist Dith Pran (1942–2008), who also survived the Khmer Rouge regime.

Ngor’s role inThe Killing Fields was his most significant, earning him an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. The rest of his acting career proved to be less noteworthy, although it lasted up to the time of his death. Friends noted he often took roles because his earnings allowed him to continue speaking about what happened in Cambodia. His other film appearances included The Iron Triangle(1989); Vietnam, Texas(1990); Heaven and Earth(1993); and My Life(1993). His television credits include such shows as Miami Viceand Hotel and the made-for-television movie series Vanishing Son(1994). Ngor’s last movie, Hit Me (1996), was released the year he died. In 1987, he cowrote and published his autobiography Haing Ngor:A Cambodian Odyssey.

Ngor was still working as a counselor for Cambodian refugees when he was shot and killed in February 1996 outside of his Los Angeles apartment building. At the time, conspiracy theories tied the murder to his public calls to bring remaining high-ranking Khmer Rouge members to justice. However, the police determined that the slaying was perpetrated by members of a street gang during a robbery for drug money. Three gang members were eventually arrested and convicted of the murder.

Significance

Probably more important than his work as an actor was Haing Ngor’s work as a humanitarian activist. Among his accomplishments was his successful fundraising for various Cambodian causes, including the building of an elementary school and the start-up of small businesses in Cambodia. Even after becoming well known, he continued to work as a counselor and was a cofounder of the organizations Aid to Displaced Persons, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, and Enfants d’Angkor (Children of Angkor), located in Paris, France. The nonprofit Dr. Haing S. Ngor Foundation was established in the early 1990s and incorporated in 1997. It continues his work with refugees in the United States and abroad. As a mark of the impact made by his life’s work, two documentaries about Ngor were produced: A Man Without a Country and Beyond the Killing Fields.

Bibliography

Dith Pran, ed. Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs of Survivors. New Haven: Yale UP, 1997. Print.

Keo, Camille. "Spotlight on Actor and Activist Haing Somnang Ngor." Los Angeles Public Library Blog, 27 Dec. 2022, www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/spotlight-actor-and-activist-haing-somnang-ngor. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.

Ngor, Haing, with Roger Warner. Haing Ngor: A Cambodian Odyssey. New York: Macmillan, 1987.

Roe, Mike. "Remembering Haing Ngor, the First Asian to Win Best Supporting Actor--for 'The Killing Fields' in 1985." LAist, 27 Mar. 2023, laist.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/remembering-haing-ngor-the-first-asian-actor-to-win-best-supporting-actor-for-the-killing-fields-in-1984. Accessed 21 Aug. 2024.

Tran, My-Thuan. “Revisiting Haing Ngor’s Murder: Killing Fields Theory Won’t Die.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 21 Jan. 2010. Web. 7 Mar. 2012.