Kieu Chinh

Kieu Chinh (Vietnamese spelling: Kiều Chinh, real name Nguyễn Thị Chinh, born 1939 in Vietnam) is a Vietnamese American actress best known for her role in The Joy Luck Club.

Career

In the 1960s, in addition to Vietnamese films, she also appeared in several American productions including A Yank in Viet-Nam (1964) and Operation C.I.A. (1965), the latter opposite Burt Reynolds. Kieu Chinh also produced a war epic Nguoi Tinh Khong Chan Dung (Faceless Lover) (1970), which later would be remastered and shown in the U.S. at the 2003 Vietnamese International Film Festival.

In 1975, while Kieu Chinh was on the set in Singapore, communist North Vietnamese overran Saigon. Kieu Chinh left for the U.S. where she resumed her acting career in a 1977 episode of M*A*S*H "In Love and War" of written by Alan Alda and loosely based on her life story.

Kieu Chinh subsequently acted in feature films as well as TV-movies including The Children of An Lac (TV), Hamburger Hill (1987), Riot (1997), Catfish in Black Bean Sauce (1999), Face (2002).

From 1989 to 1991, she had a recurring role as Trieu Au on the ABC Vietnam War drama series China Beach.

In her best known role, she starred as Suyuan, one of the women in Wayne Wang’s The Joy Luck Club in 1993. In 2005, Kieu Chinh starred in Journey from the Fall, an epic feature film tracing a Vietnamese family through the aftermath of the fall of Saigon, the re-education camps, the boat people experience, and the initial difficulties of settling in the U.S.

Kieu Chinh is also active in philanthropic work. Together with journalist Terry Anderson, she co-founded the Vietnam Children’s Fund, which has built schools in Vietnam attended by more than 12,000 students. Kieu Chinh and Anderson continue to serve as the Fund’s co-chair.

Filmography

Honors and awards

A documentary based on her life, Kieu Chinh: A Journey Home by Patrick Perez / KTTV, won the Emmy in 1996.

In 2009, Chinh was honored as the 2009 Woman of the Year for her work in film and community service by State Senator Lou Correa.

External links

Category:1939 births Category:American film actors Category:American actors of Asian descent Category:Living people Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:People from Hanoi Category:Vietnamese immigrants to the United States Category:Vietnamese actors