Kieu Chinh
Known For
Acting
Born
1937-07-03 in Hanoi, Vietnam
Biography
Kieu Chinh (born September 3rd, 1937) is a Vietnamese-American actress, producer, humanitarian, lecturer and philanthropist. One of the most prominent film stars in South Vietnam during the 60s and 70s, she immigrated to America after 1975 and eventually settled in California where she resumed acting with the help of Tippi Hedron; her first credit in America was as Hawkeye’s South Korean love interest in the TV show M*A*S*H. Subsequently, Kieu Chinh appeared in 45 feature films and television shows, among them the TV movies The Children of An Lac (1980), The Letter (1982) and The Girl Who Spelled Freedom (1986), and films like Hamburger Hill (1987), Gleaming the Cube (1988), Riot (1997) and Catfish in Black Bean Sauce (1999). She also landed a recurring role on ABC’s Vietnam war series China Beach from 1989 to 1991 and the Fox TV show 21 in 2008. But her best-known role is that of Suyuan Woo in Wayne Wang’s The Joy Luck Club in 1993, a film about the relationship between Chinese immigrant mothers and their Chinese-American mothers. Amongst the accolades that Chinh has received in her six-decade career are the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Vietnamese International Film Festival in 2003, the Special Acting Award at the Women’s Film Festival in Turin in 2003, and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the San Diego Asian Film Festival and the San Francisco Film Fest in 2006 and 2015, respectively. In 2009, Chinh was honored as the Woman of the Year for her work in film and community service by California Representative Lou Correa.
Most Known For
NCIS: Los Angeles
as Kim Nguyen
NCIS: Los Angeles
as Madge
ER
as Mrs. Chen
The Neighborhood
as Tuyen
Chicago Hope
as Mrs. Mai Ying Wang
Touched by an Angel
as Lang
Touched by an Angel
as Mrs. Kim
City of Angels
as Asian Woman
Martial Law
as Lin Sung Yuan
Dope Thief
as Xuan 'Grandma' Pham
Cybill
as Herbalist
The Sympathizer
as Crapulent Major's Mother
21
as Chinese Woman
Promised Land
as Mrs. Kim
Roots: The Next Generations
as U.N. Receptionist
Face
as Mrs. Liu
Hamburger Hill
as Mama San
The Joy Luck Club
as Suyuan Wong
Gleaming the Cube
as Madame Trac
Control Freak
as Aunt Thuy