The whole community banded together and they all agreed to sell him out of donuts every morning by 9 a.m. In 1975, Ngoy fled the Khmer Rouge with his wife and three children to Camp Pendleton. If you're enjoying this article, you'll love my daily morning newsletter, How To LA. I told him that he has a story to tell. Because he was a high roller the casinos put him up in $2,000-a-night suites and offered him VIP tickets to the best shows. She belonged to a high ranking officer, you know like a princess in Cambodia, very rich and very powerful family. The family worked 12 to 17 hours a day, with all hands on deck. Your tax-deductible financial support keeps our stories free to read, instead of hidden behind paywalls. Alice found it hard to persuade Ted to return to California for filming. He sat on the roof of his apartment and played his flute, the music sweeping over the neighborhood. Long hours. She ended up threatening to starve herself, saying, "If you won't let me be with him, I'm not going to eat.". His story begins in the early 1970s when Ngoy was a commander in the Royal Cambodian Army, training soldiers in Thailand. You cannot resist against it.. Pit bosses, floor men and dealers at Caesars Palace, the MGM Grand and the Mirage got to know the Cambodian doughnut king. In 1985, Ngoy and his wife became American citizens assuming the American names of Ted and Christy, respectively, and were enjoying a lavish lifestyle including a million dollar home at Lake Mission Viejo, a vacation home in Big Bear, expensive cars, and vacations to Europe. Ngoy became a trainee and took over a Winchell's in Newport Beach. 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 Trumps rhetoric. When he completed his three-month training, Winchell's gave him a shop to run on Balboa Pier, a tourist spot on the Newport peninsula not far from Tustin. Ted and Suganthini sold everything they had and arrived in California on one of the first refugee flights, with their three children, an adopted nephew and two nieces. I never loved you.' "[9] In a mixed review, Brad Wheeler of The Globe and Mail said the film is "well worth watching" while saying there "are holes in this doughnut story. A day before he left, his eldest son said if you have $3.2 million you can buy it. Ted Ngoy in The Donut King documentary. He was Chinese Cambodian, part of a despised underclass. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Daily Pilot. They saw Elvis Presley perform, and Ted played a little blackjack. While working a second job at a gas station, Ngoy took notice of a busy local donut shop and inquired of its operators about . By 2002 Ted was broke. Doughnut revenue put their children through college. I could have made a special piece just on the history of donuts. TED NGOY HAD an unrelenting obsession during his 1975 plane ride from Southeast Asia to Southern California. Bush, met former Presidents Reagan and Nixon, and urged other Asian immigrants to support the GOP. Faced with such determination, her family allowed the young lovers to be together. Ted managed to escape on the last flight out of Phnom Penh but Suganthini's parents were left behind. I said, 'Because it's incredible, for one. It took longer than 40 years. 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. They barely talked to him. The family were housed in a hastily erected refugee camp on a marine training base, Camp Pendleton. goes to your local theater. He spends his evenings alone, reading the Bible. He suggested that Ted hang out in the back and to put Christy in the front. He has found his way to be wealthy again. They wont trust you, he said. Your Guide To Everything Boozy You Can Order, A Los Angeles Family Seeks Answers And Accountability After Black Mom Dies In Childbirth. Upon deeper glance, it was so personal for me. Ted kept a low profile until the LA filmmaker Alice Gu got in touch a couple of years ago. "I never back down. 60? He took a chance and opened a bedroom door - and there was Suganthini, fast asleep. It provided a path for refugees to settle and was a profitable business model. Ted negotiated well and got a good commission. And she let me in to take a shower. Her daughter, Mayly Tao, has taken over the reigns of DK's. He also figured that as a prominent politician, he would be forced to control his gambling habit. Eventually he and Christy were left with just one doughnut shop, which they decided to sell. LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio, a member-supported public media network. Ted became their first South East Asian trainee. Once, he was a poor boy who carried away one of Cambodias wealthiest daughters. The ubiquity and low overhead of these Cambodian mom-and-pop donut shops helped drive Dunkin' Donuts out of California in the late '90s. Ted encouraged others to do the same. And he said he saw her heart break before his very eyes. Ted, who spoke four languages, was offered a post as liaison officer in Thailand by Suganthini's brother-in-law, Gen Sak Sutsakhan. In the early 1990s, it was reported that California had 2,400 Cambodian-owned doughnut shops. I did not have time to expand. The gambling is sad, the saddest part of my life.". He moved from church to church, until an elderly Cambodian woman allowed him to live on the covered porch of her mobile home. In a year Ted had saved enough to put down a deposit on a second doughnut shop, a "mom-and-pop" shop called Christy's. He had gotten his first taste of that passion years earlier. When Christy's parents eventually discovered the ruse, they were furious. They cried and prayed for the family they had left behind. "[8] Giving it three-out-of-four stars, Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com called the The Donut King "a heartwarming albeit scattered documentary from director Alice Gu," and praised the film for "its balance of poppy visuals and detailed history. With the pastor's permission he went out and got two more jobs, as a sales person from 6pm to 10pm and petrol attendant from 10pm to 6am. But he was more than well-off; he was respected. His doughnut fortune was almost gone. Perpetually in need of cash, he'd ask the people running his donut shops for loans. Her brother-in-law, Sutsakhan Sak, was chief of police and would become, briefly, the countrys president. [4], Despite the wealth he had amassed and his importance within his community, Ngoy felt dissatisfied, remarking that he had "No political life, no religious life, just work, work. "[1], Ted Ngoy was born in the Cambodian village of Sisophon near the country's border with Thailand. . 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. He returned to a refugee community in transition. He was, however, invited to become a government adviser on commerce and agriculture. Suganthini replied, "Well be careful, if you don't jump into my room, you'll jump into my mum's room.". Ngoy would often visit Las Vegas for a period of a week, unbeknownst to his wife. Ted resides in Cambodia where he splits his time between Phnom Pen and Kep, a province in Southern Cambodia that's famous for its crab fishing industry. At each stop, they set up the business and trained the families who leased it. "The more you chase, the more it's gone," he says in a new documentary about his rise and fall, called The Donut King. That is a lie, he cried, and plunged the blade into his belly. The entire family Christy and the three kids worked alongside him. As word of Ted's success spread, Cambodian immigrants started seeking him out when they arrived in Southern California. I always thought of it as a Plan B to come back and now, it has become the Plan A and more," Tao says. "Everybody's happy to see me now, because I changed from the bad guy to the good guy.". The following month, US President Gerald Ford insisted the US should welcome 130,000 refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia, telling any critics: "We're a country built by immigrants from all areas of the world, and we've always been a very humanitarian nation.". But then Ted discovered that the tiny room where he lodged, on the fourth floor of a walk-up apartment block, overlooked Suganthini's villa. "[10], Whittaker said that "as Asian Americans face increasing racism, its closing message about how immigrant communitiesdefine America has only become more timely."[8]. That's a disaster," he says. The Donut King is told through archival footage, animation, and interviews with family members alongside Ted Ngoy, who has tried to make peace with those who he's hurt including Mel Allison, a 91-year-old baker still at it at Winchell's. When I become big guy, then I cannot go gamble because people wont vote for you. "If I need to shower, I knock on the door, 'Lady can I take a shower?' Just knowing that my great uncle Ted and the story of my parents and hearing Alice say, 'I want to really dig deep on a Cambodian donut shop,' I was like, 'Wow, this is real. He had met Richard Nixon, the former president, and Presidents Reagan and George HW Bush. By 1985, 10 years after arriving in the US as refugees, Ted and Christy were millionaires, owning around 60 doughnut shops. Hes really funny. And that's what he did. You see some of these families and their stores in The Donut King "I became a very, very bad man and borrowed money here and there," he says. It's so amazing, so touching.' On one of his Las Vegas trips, Ngoy took up gambling. Ngoy managed to escape just as Phnom Penh was falling and brought his wife, Suganthini, and their three children to America in the mid-1970s. Boozy Dole Whips. Gu says Christy's family then threatened to kill Ted but his mother made a deal with them. 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