Spellbinder : Vietnamese Star Fights Communists in Song

Inside the tiny home-recording studio, The Voice is busy. Forget that temperatures inside the cramped and windowless room hover in the 90s. Or that perspiration has beaded on his forehead and his clothes are starting to cling to his body.

The Voice moves rhythmically to the beat of a ballad called “Unknown Soldiers,” a Vietnamese tribute to the war dead of that nation. He nails the song in four tries, leaving technicians and smiling onlookers tapping their toes and swaying to the beat.

The tune is part of an 11-song cassette that will be sold in Vietnamese enclaves in this country to help sponsor anti-Communist political projects.

Hung Cuong was picked to sing the soldiers’ song because his voice and presence can excite a patriotic audience, causing women to swoon and men to dream of recapturing their homeland.

“He’s knows what it’s for, how important it is to the Vietnamese people,” says co-producer Cang Nguyen. “That’s why he decided to help us.”

Cuong’s singing and acting career has spanned decades--he has crooned to troops in South Vietnam and to the king and queen of Malaysia, and starred in more than 20 films. And the Garden Grove resident remains one of the best-known Vietnamese singers.

His dark hair, handsome features and powerful voice have kept him popular in Vietnamese exile communities worldwide, in which he is regarded as the equivalent of Frank Sinatra. Like Ol’ Blue Eyes, Cuong has hundreds of female followers, but unlike Sinatra, he is only on his third marriage. She’s 24, he’s 53.

Vietnamese men lament that his singing carries a threat of “losing your woman’s heart.”

“I let my wife hear him, but I’d rather lock her up when he’s around,” admitted Phong Tran of Cypress.

Cuong’s songs--a mix of romantic ballads and traditional Vietnamese songs that were introduced in Saigon before the capital city was taken over by the North Vietnamese--have become standards. His performances in Australia, Paris and Canada were sellouts. In July, more than 2,000 Vietnamese filled an auditorium in Zurich, Switzerland, to hear The Voice.

But what has set this singer apart from other Vietnamese entertainers has been his devotion to anti-communism. His political fervor--acquired in part through his country’s surrender to the North Vietnamese and his years in a re-education camp--has made him an icon to nationalists in the United States and a patriotic institution to Vietnamese exiles abroad.

To facilitate a tour of Australia, Vietnamese there paid his fare, hotel and concert fees, then showered him with gifts. At a refugee camp in Thailand two years ago, authorities watched in alarm as hundreds of refugees stormed a stage, prompting a call for extra security and forcing Cuong to make a quick exit.

The camp reminded him of his own capture by the North Vietnamese after Saigon fell on April 30, 1975. “I was forbidden to act or sing, because they believed that it was propaganda. My picture was displayed on posters along with American war atrocities,” he said.

He was put in a re-education camp, released, then arrested again. It was a pattern that continued until he escaped the country in 1980 by hijacking a police boat and sailing to Malaysia.

Cuong said the refugee camp incident had such an emotional impact on him that he has since donated money and supplies to aid Vietnamese refugees.

“These people, they escaped from Vietnam and now they can’t go anywhere,” he said. “I wanted to stay there, to help improve conditions (in the camp), which were so filthy, so unsanitary . . . so horrible.”

Rick Murphy, a San Diego entertainer who accompanied Cuong to Thailand, remembered the thousands of adoring fans.

“He’s like Frank Sinatra and Bob Hope wrapped into one. He can sing everything, from rock to patriotic songs, and then turn right around and sing classical music. He’s a legend,” Murphy said.

“The people at the camp were really very glad to see him. Conditions there were primitive. We heard mortar fire from a distance and here we were with no electricity on a makeshift stage, singing with megaphones,” Murphy said.

On stage, Cuong’s patriotic zeal, which has angered Hanoi and those who favor establishing U.S.-Hanoi diplomatic relations, often emerges during concerts. He sometimes wears the familiar dark green fatigues or uniform of South Vietnam’s soldiers. Other times he paints his face with splashes of yellow and red--the colors of the South Vietnamese flag.

Cuong’s open hatred of communism and of the current regime in Hanoi, which imprisoned him and his brother, Hiep Tran, who escaped and now lives in Fountain Valley, has presented problems.

Last year, while he was on a European tour, people began calling his home, which at that time was in Anaheim, and warning his wife to urge him to tone down his remarks or stop making public appearances. The threats continued until his car was set on fire.

“It left my wife very shaken. So we moved,” Cuong said.

He now lives in an apartment in Garden Grove adorned with mementoes of his entertainment career from Vietnam’s war years.

But the animosity continues. When Cuong became seriously ill last year with pneumonia, a newspaper in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) used the illness to erroneously report that he had contracted AIDS and died “just like Rock Hudson of America.” The headline screamed: “The First Vietnamese in America to Contract AIDS.”

But, Cuong promised, “I will not stop singing.”

Outside forces have influenced Cuong’s life since his birth in a small hamlet southeast of Saigon.

His father, Tha Tran, a merchant marine officer, wanted his son to attend Khoa Hoc Hang Hai, a merchant marine university in Saigon.

But after eight months at the university, Cuong and a friend ditched school and took the written exam for the air force academy. Cuong said he always wanted to be a fighter pilot, a dream shared by most Vietnamese youths at the time.

After the exam, Cuong went home to eat lunch and take a nap before his oral examination, but his father got wind of what he had done and locked him in the bathroom.

“I was about 19 at that time, and I really wanted to be a flier in the air force. Of course, I could have broken out of the bathroom, but it would have saddened my father so I stayed inside out of respect for him,” Cuong said.

Even at that time, Cuong was already singing in Saigon cabarets and nightclubs and had won a following.

“I was the first Vietnamese singer to sing in French and one of the first Vietnamese singers to sing American songs,” Cuong said.

Ever the showman, Cuong broke into impromptu renditions of “Bernardine,” the calypso “Banana Boat Song” made famous by Harry Belafonte, and one of Cuong’s favorites, the Paul Anka classic “Diana” during a recent interview at a restaurant in Orange County’s Little Saigon.

He gained his country’s attention while still in high school when he won a national contest for best male singing voice. A few years later, he added to his rapid rise when he won a music contest in Singapore. It wasn’t Hoboken, N.J., but finalists sang to the Malaysian king and queen in Singapore, and the winner received a gold medal and $200.

His first recording was “Duong Xua Loi Cu,” which in English means the Old Path Home, a nostalgic ballad that is still popular today.

He became a regular performer at the Da Ly Huong, which was Saigon’s counterpart to a Broadway theater. While performing there, he honed his traditional music skills.

He is a celebrated singer of traditional Vietnamese opera, yet has a range of talent that allows him to sing contemporary tunes and rock ‘n’ roll. Vietnamese from all over the world invite him to sing in their communities and offer to pay his expenses, as well as concert fees.

At the height of his popularity in South Vietnam, he and his troupe were earning about 50,000 piasters per performance. An 18-month salary for his troupe was about 6.5 million piasters, or the equivalent of $50,000.

As his fame grew, he ran into problems, especially with jealous husbands and lovers.

One famous general who headed Saigon’s Third Quadrant would often shower his mistress with expensive gifts such as clothing and French cosmetics. She, in turn, would wait for Cuong backstage after a performance and give them to him to show her affection.

“I didn’t know at that time that she was a general’s lover,” Cuong said.

When the general found out, he sent military police to arrest Cuong.

At the time, military service was mandatory and all men’s hair had to be no longer than one inch in front, and half an inch in back. When Cuong pleaded with the general that he had been given a special permit to have long hair because he was an entertainer, the general ordered Cuong’s hair cut anyway.

Embarrassed and unable to go on stage with his new crew cut, Cuong complained to his father-in-law, who told Nguyen Cao Ky, who was then head of the government.

“My father-in-law was the doctor who took care of Ky’s fighting cocks. Ky got mad and later chewed out the general, who didn’t know that Ky was the one who had written the (long-hair) permit,” Cuong recalled, laughing.

Like Sinatra, Cuong has also enjoyed fame as a movie actor. He explained that during the war, most of the movies made in South Vietnam involved war and romance. Plots often had the husband, played by Cuong, leaving home for military duty in a remote area. The roles of the mother and children were to wait for their husband and father to come home.

His movie career began in 1963, with the help of the U.S. government. The U.S. ambassador in Saigon invited him and several other Vietnamese actors to star in three films with heavy anti-Communist themes.

But by that time, his popularity was such that Vietnamese producers who wanted him for their films had to stand in line. “They knew that if they had him as a star, they wouldn’t need to advertise their movies as heavily,” said Chuyen V. Nguyen, an Orange County community activist who is a longtime admirer of Cuong.

And his popularity was not lost on the South Vietnamese government. Before the collapse of Saigon, Cuong was made a ranger corporal in the Vietnamese army’s 4th Division. The equivalent of USO entertainers, he and other singers would be flown by helicopters into combat zones to entertain the troops.

In 1969, one of the nation’s most popular songs was about a military-ordered curfew, translated roughly to mean “100% Curfew.” Cuong, who sang the song on national television in uniform, saw it become a nationalistic anthem.

“The song told of every soldier having to stay on their base. The Communist army was outside and you have to prepare, to get ready for them, to give 100%,” Cuong explained.

After the collapse of Saigon, Cuong, who had amassed a fortune, was forced to give up a comfortable, three-story home in Saigon and move to a rural area. Although he had permission to leave, he was the eldest son and had to honor his father’s wishes to remain in their country.

“What could I do? My father didn’t want to leave. He said, ‘Why?’ This is my country,’ ” Cuong related.

Cuong eventually fled. His brother, who drove him to the shore where Cuong hijacked a boat, was caught and imprisoned for three years at hard labor.

The incident has hardened Cuong against the North Vietnamese government. “I will always be against communism. I’m a freedom fighter, and I will do what I have to do as an entertainer to help my people,” he said.

Since arriving in Orange County in the early 1980s, Cuong has continued to enjoy the good life. He holds court at restaurants in Little Saigon, where he regularly kibitzes with old friends amid plates of steamed clams, shrimp and lobster.

He likes to sport expensive jewelry. A large gold medallion, inlaid with jade, hangs around his neck, and he wears two jade rings accented with diamonds.

He talks about how fame has strained his marriages.

In Vietnam at the height of his popularity, Cuong was idolized by thousands, especially young Vietnamese women who were eager to see and touch him.

Some who were obsessed would sit outside his home and wait. When he was on tour and inaccessible, they would ring the doorbell and leave gifts. Others would take gifts to his wife, hoping that she would somehow serve as a gateway to him.

“I couldn’t just push these fans away,” Cuong said. “Because of that, I feel that my two marriages in Vietnam suffered. The women I was married to couldn’t resist the jealousy. They just couldn’t live like that.”

He first wife, Huynh Thi, bore him five children and remains in Vietnam, where the two oldest sons and a daughter are singers. A second wife has fled Vietnam and lives in the United States.

He met his third wife, Nguyen Kim Dung, when he was performing in Paris. She was only 17, so he had to ask her mother’s permission to marry. They have a son, Patrick Tran Huong, 5, and a daughter, Tan Kim Quy Viet, 3.

Cuong, who speaks very little English, doesn’t believe that he would be as successful trying to cross over to a non-Asian audience, as many other Vietnamese singers are attempting.

He knows his audience and prefers to perform at benefits or political rallies, or even singing for no fee part of the 11-song music cassette being recorded in Fullerton. “I don’t want to lose or forget my Vietnamese music,” he said. “I don’t want to downplay the fact that I am a Vietnamese.”