Upon deeper glance, it was so personal for me. He would forge her signature on checks and even borrow money from relatives who leased stores from him. He’s really funny. Ted and a lot of the Asians who came aligned themselves with the Republican party. Upon his return to Orange County, Ngoy began gambling harder than ever stating "Monks cannot help me, Buddha cannot help me. I could have made a special piece just on the history of donuts. Designers Andrew Hem and Charlie Le were awarded a SWSW Film special jury recognition for their poster design of “The Donut King” in 2020. In our very first phone call, he asked if I was American and I told him that I was Chinese American. One of them being my interview with Michael Krondl, the food historian. Handout So, there are holes in this doughnut story. Owner of 25 Christy’s Doughnut shops from San Francisco to San Diego, he is one of the most successful Cambodian business executives in the country. Ngoy would make a habit of returning monthly to watch performers such as Tom Jones, Diana Ross and Wayne Newton and indulging in the incentives pit bosses of major casinos offered all the while spending even larger sums at the card tables. Ted's son Christy Ngoy tells a story about the disappearance of a paper bag full of $85,000 while his father was in police custody. When he was working in the donut shop, he went to his sponsor and said he was having a hard time. [1], In 2013, he was living in Phnom Penh working in the real estate business. Virtual town hall addresses COVID-19 vaccine concerns in O.C.’s Asian American community. He became tired running doughnut shops on his own and decided to train and lease shops to his relatives and employ Cambodian refugees. Ngoy spent a total of 45 days in the mansion before being discovered by Suganthini's parents and subsequently kicked out. They’re savvy, young, hip. The film follows an immigrant tale of the American dream through Bun Tek “Ted” Ngoy, a Cambodian refugee whose charmed life is full of war, romance, entrepreneurship, racism and a caution about greed. TimesOC e-Newspaper: Sunday, Jan. 17, 2021. He married Stephanie Ngoy, whose brother was one of Ted Ngoy’s first pioneers, and the couple ran two doughnut shops. In English, Mandarin and Cambodian with English subtitles; Not rated, Playing: Regency South Coast Village, Santa Ana, and in limited release where theaters are open; available via virtual cinemas, including Laemmle Theatres. UC Irvine developing vaccine that targets all coronaviruses. Did working on this film change or contribute to your perspective of the American dream or immigrant stories?It seems like these days the American dream is harder and harder to attain. Ted's story is one of fate, love, survival, hard knocks, and redemption. There’s so much competition. He is nicknamed the "Donut King." He formed the Free Development Republican Party ahead of the country’s UN-backed elections believing that he could show others the path to wealth and hoping that in being a politician his gambling addiction would be stymied. Ted Ngoy stands in front of his first independent donut shop in La Habra, named after his wife Christy Ngoy. If you’ve ever enjoyed a donut that came from a pink box, you have Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy to thank. school board member who was at Capitol rally. He also sponsored more than 100 Cambodian refugee families and established a path of financial opportunity for them in America. That really broke the ice for us. Search Search Microsoft.com. It actually made national, if not international, news about the kindness of these people in Orange County. Ted Ngoy Realty Ted Ngoy on IMDb: Movies, Tv, Celebrities, and more... Oscars Best Picture Winners Best Picture Winners Golden Globes Emmys STARmeter Awards San Diego Comic-Con New York Comic-Con Sundance Film Festival Toronto Int'l Film Festival Awards Central Festival Central All Events His secret: hard work in the extreme, a willingness to learn, and sheer determination. He started from the bottom and worked his way up. Ted Ngoy. To understand the politics, the Republican party at the time was a very anticommunist party. I’m also, again, the daughter of Chinese American immigrants and my dad was a big Republican party supporter. A map of Christy’s Donuts, Winchell’s and Dunkin Donuts across California during the height of Ted Ngoy’s entrepreneurship in the 1970s through the 1990s. And it was actually a donut that I refused at first from Mayly Tao, the Donut Princess. His sponsor told him people will have their prejudices but they mean well. Despite her sheltered life and being forbidden from having friends or leaving the house other than for school, Suganthini fell in love. The two eventually began a secret correspondence via letters delivered by the Khoeun family maid. He writes about his extraordinary journey. Nearly every independent donut shop in every Southern California mini-mall hides a story — and many of them start with an unlikely impresario, a Cambodian refugee named Ted Ngoy. It was a strategy that ended up working for them. We had an instant connection and it felt like we were meant to be doing this story together. TimesOC’s e-newspaper includes all six pages of Sunday’s coverage of Orange County. Ted Ngoy sits on the bed in the room in Long Beach in November, 2004. This is an incredible story of how he helped people. Bush and encouraged fellow Cambodian immigrants to support the GOP. Which donut shop do you find yourself going back to for the sake of eating a donut?I had my out of body experience at DK’s Donuts and Bakery in Santa Monica. Something else about Orange County that I found so beautiful and touching while we were making this film, there was a man who owned a donut shop in Seal Beach and his wife was stricken with cancer. Ted Ngoy was a high school student in Phnom Penh when he first set eyes on Suganthini Khoeun, the daughter of a high-ranking government official. Some of his relationships didn’t end well. By 1990, the ‘doughnut king’ was reported to be in the grips of a serious gambling habit. I called her when I found out and asked if she knew about Ford and Brown. Then he lost it all. By 1980, Ted Ngoy owned 20 Christy’s shops in Southern California. "She … By 1987, Ngoy owned 32 Christy's Donuts locations, largely accomplished by living out of a motorhome allowing him and his family to travel up and down the state of California establishing new locations. Chet and Savy, Ted Ngoy’s oldest children, sit down for an interview in “The Donut King.”. This is my own speculation, but it seemed like he had come to some peace with his dad and childhood. He didn’t want to build a brand. The second time Ted came back to California, Chet took all this time off of work, took him to his timeshare in Oceanside and drove his dad around all over Southern California. I say, “Ted I don’t think it’s that easy at all.” And he’ll respond, “I’ve been rich three times. After cry, go back gambling." The Ngoys decided to keep uniformity amongst their shops, naming subsequent acquisitions Christy's. [7][3], Ngoy's fortunes improved dramatically, such that by the mid-1980s Ngoy had amassed millions of dollars through his expanding doughnut shop empire, reported as 50 locations throughout California. He wrote a book called “The Donut: History, Recipes, and Lore from Boston to Berlin” and he gave really fascinating insights into donut culture, history and our relationship to donuts in America. He subsequently received training through an affirmative action program to increase donut hiring within the Winchell's chain of doughnut shops, and managed a store in Newport Beach where he employed his wife ted nephew. Ted Ngoy Realty, Kompot Chhuk, Kampong Thum, Cambodia. That's because of a refugee who built up an empire, and became known as the Donut King, only to lose it all. He would have no more donuts to sell so he could be with his wife for the rest of the day. Photo: Los Angeles Times … People made fun of his accent. [4], Ngoy secured work as a janitor with Peace Lutheran Church in Tustin, California. He is working in real estate. He lost everything and had to start from scratch. In doing the research and finding that it was President [Gerald] Ford who issued the executive order to receive the refugees, a Republican president — that was a huge surprise to me given that during the time that we were making this film we were hearing Donald Trump’s rhetoric. Ted Ngoy (born Bun Tek Ngoy; 1942) is a Cambodian American entrepreneur and former owner of a chain of doughnut shops in California. The proclaimed 'Donut King' taught his family how to build and sustain a business. The world moves so quickly now, but I do believe that it is still real and it is still possible. He was raised by his mother, who was from Shantou, Guangdong, and who only spoke Chinese. Director Alice Gu makes her film debut with “The Donut King,” following the life of Ted Ngoy. It was on the market. 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