Following the end of World War II and the subsequent division of Vietnam into Communist and National regimes after the Geneva Conference, Chinh's older brother ran away from home to join the Resistance Forces.

Her father urged her to board an aircraft and travel to the South, while he remained in the North to search for her older brother, promising to reunite with her in Saigon.

Following her return to Vietnam in 1995 to meet her older brother, Chinh learned that her father was imprisoned in a communist re-education camp for more than six years and, after his release, died homeless and destitute.

Monsieur Nguyễn Đại Độ was worried that his son would stay in America after the airborne course, so he decided to send a telegram to the North.

One day in 1956 Kieu Chinh was walking near the Hôtel Continental, when a young man approached her and asked her to go to a roadside café to meet someone.

Within a week, Saigon widespread press headline news, including portrait photos of "Vietnamese unknown girl rejects Hollywood's famous director".

So politician Bùi Diễm invited Kieu Chinh to play the lead role in the first project of his studio - Tân Việt Films.

[2] In her career spanning over sixty years from 1957 to the present, Chinh has received many accolades including an Emmy Award in 1996.

Kieu Chinh also produced a war epic Faceless Lover (or Warrior, Who Are You) (1971), which later would be remastered and shown in the U.S. at the 2003 Vietnamese International Film Festival.

By Hoàng Vĩnh Lộc's idea, a feature of Faceless Lover that related so much to the military forces, that every Saigon studio had declined.

Permission for the Giao Chỉ Films Studio's war film was initially rejected because the studio was privately owned, so general director Kieu Chinh asked for permission from the Ministry of Information, Ministry of National Defence, and especially the headquarter of the Republic of Vietnam Military Forces.

After its completion, the release of Faceless Lover was blocked for more than a year, because the censorship agency viewed it as an anti-war film which could discourage youths from joining the army.

In a 1973 screening event at the National Centre for Cinema by Minister of Open-Arms Hoàng Đức Nhã[5] with 100% audiences as the Cabinet's members.

Guests included: Trịnh Công Sơn, Cung Tiến, Văn Quang... then back again to Kieu Chinh's home at Lữ Gia housing overnight.

After the initial contract week, Faceless Lover was deemed a success, so actor Minh Trường Sơn had to collect a large payment.

[8] Kieu Chinh resumed her acting career in the US, her first part being in a 1977 episode of M*A*S*H "In Love and War", written by Alan Alda and loosely based on her life story.

Chinh subsequently acted in feature films as well as TV movies, including The Children of An Lac (1980), Hamburger Hill (1987), Riot (1997), Catfish in Black Bean Sauce (1999), Face (2002), Journey From The Fall (2005), 21 (2008).

[12] In 2005, Chinh starred in Journey from the Fall, a film tracing a Vietnamese family through the aftermath of the fall of Saigon, the re-education camps, the boat people experience, and the initial difficulties of settling in the U.S.[13][14] In 2016, she returned to Vietnam to inaugurate the 50th school which was built in Hanoi under the Vietnam Children's Fund.

During the peak period of boat people fleeing the border since 1980, Chinh did charity work for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

[17] The first school was located in Quảng Trị and named after one of the association's founders, Lewis Burwell Puller Jr., in memory of the American veteran who passed away nearly a year earlier.

[24] She was named "Refugee of the Year" by the United States Congress in 1990,[88] received the "Warrior Woman Award" from the Asian Pacific Women’s Network, and was the only Vietnamese person invited to speak at the 10th anniversary ceremonies for the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC.

In 2015, the San Francisco Bay Area – Festival of Globe (FOGsv) honors Chinh with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her contributions to the film industry and more.

A documentary based on her life, Kieu Chinh: A Journey Home by Patrick Perez / KTTV, won the Emmy Awards in 1996.

[89] Chinh was honored as the 2009 Woman of the Year for her work in film and community service by State Senator Lou Correa.