Heip Thi LeAt the age of eight in 1979, the Vietnam-born actress and her seven-years-old sister were separated from their parents and left their village in central Vietnam as boat people. Their mother and older brother stayed behind with her other children. Thesisters lived in refugee camps in Hong Kong for three months, where they were reunited with their father. They then immigrated to California before reuniting with their five other siblings. Her mother finally reunited with the family four years later. Hiep was a premed student at UC-Davis, majoring in physiology, when she came to the open casting call with one of her sisters for the Oliver Stone film Heaven & Earth (1993) that was being held at San Jose State University because several of her friends were doing it for fun. She was one of the sixteen thousand Vietnamese Americans seen by casting scouts for the film and was the one, out of the thousands, who got the starring role of Le Ly Hayslip. Despite having no acting experience, she had half-dozen callbacks before she was finally chosen to play the role of Le Ly Hayslip between the ages of thirteen to thirty-eight. Since that time, she had acted in several films and television shows. She attended the University of UC Davis, where she studied physiology. It was this period that she agreed to attend an opening casting call for Heaven and Earth in San Jose with her sister, in exchange for a ride to a nearby flea market. She was the owner and operator of the China Beach Vietnamese Bistro in Venice, California. She was a co-owner and Chef of Le Cellier Restaurant Wine Bar in Marina Del Rey, California. She was featured in a competitively cooking show Chopped. She passed away from complications from stomach cancer on Dec. 19, 2017 in Los Angeles. She was only 46 years old. Jill Powell co-founder, Book Investor Ink Incorporated Read More Read Less