Ngor was born in Samrong Young, Cambodia in 1940. Prior to the Pol Pot regime, he trained as a physician and gynecologist and had married My-Huoy. When the Khmer Rouge came to power, he and many of the citizens of Phnom Penh were forced out into the rural areas of the country to work in concentration camps. He did all he could to avoid being seen as educated or Western, since these people were the prime targets of the Khmer Rouge, even resorting to concealing his medical training. When Ngor's wife faced child birth, he was forced to let her die for fear of saving her could bring execution on both them and the child. After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Ngor was a doctor in a refugee camp in Thailand and afterwards came to the U.S. in 1980. Although having no prior acting experience, Ngor was cast in the British film The Killing Fields where he played the role of Dith Pran, a Cambodian journalist who survived the Khmer Rouge. Ngor went on to win numerous awards for his performance, including an Academy Award for best supporting actor making him one of only two unprofessional actors to recieve the award. Haing Ngor was murdered 16 years later on February 25, 1996 by a street gang after robbing him when he refused to give a locet with a picture of his deceased wife.