Hiep Thi Le (Vietnamese: Lê Thị Hiệp; February 18, 1971 – December 19, 2017) was an American actress.

[3]Along with approximately 60 other refugees, hid in a secret compartment behind a galley pantry on a fishing boat sailing to Hong Kong to reunite with their father.

Sometime during the night, just as we arrived at a Vietnamese checkpoint, my sister woke up and started screaming for our momma ... Everyone thought we were going to die", she says.

In the film, she plays a woman who ages from 13 to 38, who is raped and tortured in Vietnam and who becomes an abused housewife, mother, and businesswoman in the United States.

"[9] Le subsequently appeared in Bugis Street (1995, released in the United States in 1997)[5][10][11] and co-starred in the little-seen Dead Man Can't Dance (1997).

[13][14][15] After her career in the film industry, Le opened up The China Beach Bistro, a Vietnamese restaurant in Venice, Los Angeles in 2002.

After 10 years at that location, Hiep closed China Beach and opened Le Cellier, a French-Vietnamese fusion restaurant on the Venice and Marina del Rey border in 2012.

This unique cuisine combines the fresh herbs of Vietnamese food with the fine heritage of country French cooking", Le said.

[6] On February 23, 2014, Le appeared on the Food Network game show Chopped, competing in the eighteenth-season episode "Beer Here!"