Thuy Trang

Thuy Trang (Vietnamese: Thuỳ Trang, December 14, 1973 – September 3, 2001) was a Vietnamese American actress. She was best known for her role as Trini Kwan, the original Yellow Ranger in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers television series. Trang died in a car accident on September 3, 2001, near San Francisco, California.

Early life

Trang's father was a soldier in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and was tasked to protect the capital Saigon from the Communist Vietnam People's Army during the fall of Saigon in 1975. The Communist forces overcame his battalion, which was low on ammunition and air support, during a fierce battle. He decided to return home to retrieve his family, but the route was blocked by the North Vietnamese Army. Fearing for his life, he fled South Vietnam and was given political asylum by the United States. He vowed to bring his family to the United States and contact U.S. government officials to politically pressure the Communist government of the unified Vietnam.

In 1975, when Trang was two years old, the rest of the family (Thuy, her mother, an older brother, an older sister and a younger brother) were forced to flee Saigon and in 1979 they secretly boarded a cargo ship along with hundreds of other persecutedSouthern Vietnamese traveling to Hong Kong, with the ultimate aim of reaching the United States. Trang herself was very ill at the time and almost perished.

Upon arrival in Hong Kong, Trang's father petitioned the U.S. government for political asylum for his family. After some time living in a Hong Kong detention camp, Trang and her family were reunited in Little Saigon, California in 1980. Unfortunately her father would die of cancer in 1992. Trang began to study kung fu at her fathers request, around the age of nine.

Trang graduated from Banning High School and earned a scholarship to study civil engineering at the University of California, Irvine, planning to follow her father and older siblings into engineering. However, a chance run-in with an agent in Hollywood, while hanging out with friends, in 1992, sparked an interest in acting and changed her plans.

Acting career

The agent represented Trang, which led to a commercial for the Church of Scientology (though Trang herself was believed to have been a Buddhist) and an acting class at UCI, in turn leading to Trang being spotted for a public service announcement on racism.

Trang landed her first major role in 1993 when she landed the role of Trini, the Yellow Ranger, on the original cast of the TV series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Trang was on the show for about one and a half seasons. She left the show along with Austin St. John and Walter Emanuel Jones, with whom she became very good friends, Austin declaring that she was like a sister and was replaced by Karan Ashley. She went on to play Kali, one of the lead villains in the 1996 movie, The Crow: City of Angels.

Earlier the same year, she also appeared in Spy Hard as a manicurist. However, she was incorrectly credited as a masseuse, her credit being somehow switched with Tara Leon, who played a masseuse in the same short scene.

Trang also appeared in a video documentary alongside Austin St. John, called The Encyclopaedia of Martial Arts in 1995 as an interviewee and had cameos in Austin St John's Martial Art's Video and Walter Jones Hip Hop Dance Video. Trang planned to do an Aerobics video of unknown name to go alongside them, though it is unknown what happened to it.

She was set to appear in "Cyberstrike" alongside Austin St. John and Walter Jones, which never entered production.

Death

According to a CNN interview with Angela Rockwood Nguyen in 2005, Trang died on September 3, 2001, near San Francisco, California after a car accident. She was 27 years old. Trang and former actress/model Angela Rockwood-Nguyen, for whom Trang was to be a bridesmaid in her then-upcoming marriage to Dustin Nguyen, were passengers in a car traveling on Interstate 5 betweenSan Francisco and Los Angeles. They were returning late at night from visiting Rockwood-Nguyen's maid of honor when the driver (another of the bridesmaids) of the vehicle she was riding in lost control. The car swerved violently across the road before hitting the roadside rock face and flipping several times before hitting the safety rail and plunging over the bank.

Rockwood-Nguyen, who has claimed both that she was and was not wearing a seat belt in different interviews, survived after being thrown out of the vehicle through a window before its final impact; she is now quadraplegic. It is thus not known whether Trang or the driver were wearing seat-belts. The driver survived the accident; however, Trang died before reaching the hospital, due to the injuries she had sustained.

Trang was cremated a week later on September 10, and her ashes are interred at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California. Her Power Rangers co-stars Amy Jo Johnson, Austin St. John, David Yost and Walter Jones attended the funeral and memorial service to pay respect to their fallen co-star.

The episode "Circuit Unsure" of Power Rangers Time Force was dedicated to Trang's memory.

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes 1993–1994 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Trini Kwan Lead role; 80 episodes 1994 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Trini Kwan Video game; voice 1995 Encyclopedia of Martial Arts: Hollywood Celebrities Herself Video documentary 1996 Spy Hard Manicurist   1996 The Crow: City of Angels Kali