Haing S. Ngor (March 22, 1940 - February 25, 1996) was a Cambodian American physician and actor who is best known for winning an 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.

Ngor himself lived through Cambodian holocaust, and survived by hiding the fact he was an obstetrician and gynecologist, something he would have been killed for under the harsh regime and purges of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

In 1988, he wrote Haing Ngor: A Cambodian Odyssey (ASIN:0025893300) detailing his life under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

He was shot to death outside his apartment in Los Angeles, California, by members of a street gang who demanded the locket around his neck.

The locket contained a picture of his deceased wife. None of the money in his wallet (reportedly a few hundred in cash) was stolen.

External link

• Yahoo! Biography
• CNN story on his death