Biography

Haing S. Ngor was a native of Cambodia. Before the war, he was a physician & medical officer in the Cambodian army. He became a captive of the Khmer Rouge. He was imprisoned & tortured. In order to escape execution, he denied being a doctor or having an education. He moved to the U.S. as a refugee in 1980. Though he had no formal acting experience, he was chosen to portray photographer Dith Pran in The Killing Fields (1984) & won an Academy Award. He went on to a modestly distinguished acting career while continuing to work w/ human rights organizations in Cambodia on improving the conditions in resettlement camps as well as attempting to bring the perpetrators of the Cambodian massacre to justice. On February 25, 1996, he was found shot to death in the garage of his apartment building in L.A. Relatives & friends speculated that the killing was revenge for his opposition to the Khmer Rouge.
- IMDb mini biography by: Michael Berch

Haing Ngor was a doctor by training. As a Buddhist, he examined his life according to principals of the cycle of life, each reincarnation a part of the struggle to perfection. He was captured by the Khmer Rouge following the 1975 takeover of Cambodia by that party. He endured 4 years of torture & starvation. He had to conceal his medical training to escape execution even to the point of being unable to offer medical help when his wife & child died in a difficult premature labor. At the time of the Vietnamese invasion he & orphaned niece Ngim, whose parents were slain by the Khmer Rouge, escaped to a refugee camp in Thailand. They later emigrated to the U.S. in 1980. He always specified his intention to adopt Ngim (Sophia) but never did so. In February 1996, after surviving the killing fields of Cambodia, he was shot while standing near his BMW in the driveway of his home. At first it was thought that he was killed by Khmer Rouge agents, but police found that he was shot by 3 members of the Oriental Lazyboy street gang when he resisted a robbery attempt to get loot for purchase of rock cocaine. He left no will so both his niece Sophia & relatives in Cambodia laid claim to his estate.
- IMDb mini biography by: Bruce Cameron

Dr. Ngor's best known role was that of Dith Pran, the Cambodian assistant to New York Times correspondent Sydney Schanberg in the 'Killing Fields'. A gynecologist and surgeon, Ngor was ordered out of Phnom Penh along with the rest of the city's 2 million inhabitants after the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975. He was sent to the country's Northwest Zone, where middle-class Cambodians were turned overnight into peasant farmers in a classless society. Fearing for his life if his level of education were revealed, Ngor constantly attempted to disguise his medical knowledge, hiding his glasses and ignoring atrocities in the Khmer camp. When a Vietnamese invasion ousted the Khmer Rouge in 1979, Ngor escaped to Thailand and in 1980 settled in the U.S. While working in various television and movie roles, Ngor continued to work for the benefit of Cambodian refugees, including co-founding two major refugee aid societies.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous

Was a Cambodian-American gynecologist, obstetrician, actor & author.

He was gunned down in front of his apartment by 3 19 year old gang members after refusing to hand over a locket containing a photo of his wife who'd died in labour following a beating by Khmer Rouge soldiers,.

Maybe in my last life before this one I did something wrong to hurt people, but in this life I paid back.

I don't want history to blame me, saying Dr. Ngor has many opportunities, why does he not help? Now I know the value of the arts. The arts can explain everything possible to tell the world.

[on The Killing Fields (1984)] The film is real, but not real enough. The cruelty of the Khmer Rouge is not bad enough.