Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant
- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Actress, filmmaker and writer, Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant (Thi Thanh Nga) was born in Saigon, and has shuttled between Vietnam and the USA since she was 5-years-old. Her life has been a true adventure: Child of War, Karate Princess, Bride of God, Actress, Mom, Singer, Songwriter, Film Producer, Director, Widow of Peace, Philanthropist - she's done it all.
As a child of war, Tiana emigrated to the USA with her family to escape the Vietnam conflict. Her father was Director of Press for the South Vietnam regime and was given CIA clearances for their immigration. They were the first Vietnamese family to move to Virginia during the height of racial desegregation.
Tiana was harassed as a "gook" in high school, and studied martial arts for her self-protection. Tiana's teacher, Grandmaster Jhoon Rhee crowned her "Tiana Karate Princess" and introduced her to Bruce Lee. Lee accepted her as his first teen female student, and also encouraged her acting skills. They made a pact together to defy stereotypes: that he would never play a coolie, and she would never play a whore. Bruce Lee would later introduce Tiana to her future husband, Stirling Silliphant, the Oscar-winning TV and film writer who created key roles for Bruce in Hollywood.
Stirling & Tiana Silliphant were married at Chasen's restaurant, with a cast of all-star guests attending. They were considered Hollywood "royalty," appearing on national talk and game shows like The Mike Douglas Show, and Tattletales. Stirling was riding high with box office bonanzas like The Towering Inferno, Shaft, and The Poseidon Adventure, as well as having won an Oscar for penning In the Heat of the Night. He wrote for Tiana too.
Tiana made her screen debut in Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (1975), co-starring alongside "Godfathers" of cinema James Caan and Robert Duvall. Subsequent starring roles included Pearl, the star-studded hit ABC miniseries about Pearl Harbor, the lead role in Catch the Heat (1987) with Rod Steiger, Fly Away Home (TV 1981) with Brian Dennehy, and The Three Kings (1987) with Lou Diamond Phillips. She was the first Vietnamese-American to join Screen Actors Guild
Tiana left that all behind in 1989 when she visited Vietnam to pursue philanthropy and social activism. The move led both her and Stirling to profound career changes. After the war, Vietnam was the 5th poorest nation on earth, and Tiana was the first person to bring American cameramen to post-war Vietnam to film and share stories about her devastated homeland - which at that time was under strict US embargo. Her films forged friendships, not enemies. She met women and children, and war veterans from all sides who were working for peace, not war.
Tiana enjoyed unprecedented access to her forbidden mother country, and amassed an extensive one-of-a-kind 16mm film and video archive of post-war life in Vietnam. She met Oscar winner Oliver Stone in Hanoi, and co-founded the Indochina Film Arts Foundation to stimulate artistic ventures in film, theater, radio, art and education. The foundation presented projects in numerous venues, from the Director Guild of America to the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
In the early '90s, Tiana made her first film, the autobiographical documentary From Hollywood to Hanoi (1992), which was selected as the "Best Of Telluride" at Telluride Film Festival and was nominated for "Best Non-Fiction Film" at Sundance International Festival. From Hollywood to Hanoi, executive produced by Oliver Stone, is the personal account of an actress's rediscovery of her homeland, and her quest for reconciliation between her two identities, Vietnamese and American. From Hollywood to Hanoi will be expanded as part of a Vietnam Trilogy and reissued in 2025, the 50th anniversary of the end of the war.
In 1996 Tiana's husband, Stirling Silliphant, passed away in Bangkok of bone cancer. As a widow of peace, Tiana continued to film in Viet Nam to open new doors and to transcend her grief. One labor of love has lasted over three decades: a personal portrait of her father's history teacher, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the Commander of the North Vietnamese Army during both the French and the American wars. General Giap welcomed Tiana as a daughter returning home. She also met the Hanoi Politburo and iconic "enemy" leaders - all of whom expressed hope for healing and reconciliation. The resulting feature documentary, The General & Me is slated for 2025 release alongside the reissue of From Hollywood to Hanoi.
In the late '90s, Tiana became the muse for another prolific Oscar-winning writer, Christopher Hampton.
A Tony Award Celebration was organized by Tiana in 2009 in conjunction with the successful run of Yasmina Reza's Broadway play God of Carnage - translated by Christopher Hampton. The event celebrated the play's six Tony nominations and three wins, and honored Hampton's 50 plays and screenplays. James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden, Philip Glass and Phillip Noyce participated in the short documentary that Tiana created from the event.
In 2009 Tiana also filmed an odyssey to find the spirit of Michael Jackson in Beverly Hills and Vietnam, with Le Ly Hayslip - the author and subject of Oliver Stone's feature film Heaven & Earth (1993). Le Ly and Tiana visited the site of Jackson's death and documented the throngs of fans and impersonators carrying on his legacy in the U.S. and around the world.
As co-owner of Christopher Hampton's stage play The Talking Cure, Tiana was instrumental in developing the project into a feature film directed by David Cronenberg. The film, re-titled A Dangerous Method (2011), starred Michael Fassbender as Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung, and Keira Knightley as his patient and mistress. Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant is credited as Associate Producer on the 2011 release, and documented the behind the scenes development of the project.
In 2012, Alexandra and Christopher Hampton formed Hampton Silliphant Management & Productions, which presented the play Appomattox at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The play concerns itself with historic events in America, 100 years apart in time: the historic meetings between Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, in tandem with Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass in 1865, and the later machinations of Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King - which ultimately led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Appomattox was also performed as an opera with Philip Glass at The Kennedy Center in 2015.
In 2020, Tiana went on location in Malaysia to join partner Christopher Hampton (Screenwriter, Executive Producer) and crew, filming the international TV mini-series The Singapore Grip (2020). Tiana documented "the making of" the six-episode drama - which portrayed the intrigues and ultimate upheaval of British colonialism during the Fall of Singapore in WWII.
From late 2020 through 2021 Tiana has been traveling the United states collecting stories and characters for a new series entitled Detour 66. The project follows in the tracks of her late husband Stirling Silliphant's TV series, Route 66 (1960), and chronicles the dramas and cultural zeitgeist unfolding across the Divided States of America.
She is also developing a video/podcast series entitled Somebody Nobody Everybody (SNE) which explores personal memoir, social consciousness, health, age reversal and the dating game.
* More than 60 of Tiana Alexandra's films, interviews, music videos, and more are posted on tianaworld.com, vietnamtrilogy.com Tianaworld YouTube & Tianaworld Vimeo. @whyvietnamseries & @tianaworld Instagram.
As a child of war, Tiana emigrated to the USA with her family to escape the Vietnam conflict. Her father was Director of Press for the South Vietnam regime and was given CIA clearances for their immigration. They were the first Vietnamese family to move to Virginia during the height of racial desegregation.
Tiana was harassed as a "gook" in high school, and studied martial arts for her self-protection. Tiana's teacher, Grandmaster Jhoon Rhee crowned her "Tiana Karate Princess" and introduced her to Bruce Lee. Lee accepted her as his first teen female student, and also encouraged her acting skills. They made a pact together to defy stereotypes: that he would never play a coolie, and she would never play a whore. Bruce Lee would later introduce Tiana to her future husband, Stirling Silliphant, the Oscar-winning TV and film writer who created key roles for Bruce in Hollywood.
Stirling & Tiana Silliphant were married at Chasen's restaurant, with a cast of all-star guests attending. They were considered Hollywood "royalty," appearing on national talk and game shows like The Mike Douglas Show, and Tattletales. Stirling was riding high with box office bonanzas like The Towering Inferno, Shaft, and The Poseidon Adventure, as well as having won an Oscar for penning In the Heat of the Night. He wrote for Tiana too.
Tiana made her screen debut in Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (1975), co-starring alongside "Godfathers" of cinema James Caan and Robert Duvall. Subsequent starring roles included Pearl, the star-studded hit ABC miniseries about Pearl Harbor, the lead role in Catch the Heat (1987) with Rod Steiger, Fly Away Home (TV 1981) with Brian Dennehy, and The Three Kings (1987) with Lou Diamond Phillips. She was the first Vietnamese-American to join Screen Actors Guild
Tiana left that all behind in 1989 when she visited Vietnam to pursue philanthropy and social activism. The move led both her and Stirling to profound career changes. After the war, Vietnam was the 5th poorest nation on earth, and Tiana was the first person to bring American cameramen to post-war Vietnam to film and share stories about her devastated homeland - which at that time was under strict US embargo. Her films forged friendships, not enemies. She met women and children, and war veterans from all sides who were working for peace, not war.
Tiana enjoyed unprecedented access to her forbidden mother country, and amassed an extensive one-of-a-kind 16mm film and video archive of post-war life in Vietnam. She met Oscar winner Oliver Stone in Hanoi, and co-founded the Indochina Film Arts Foundation to stimulate artistic ventures in film, theater, radio, art and education. The foundation presented projects in numerous venues, from the Director Guild of America to the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
In the early '90s, Tiana made her first film, the autobiographical documentary From Hollywood to Hanoi (1992), which was selected as the "Best Of Telluride" at Telluride Film Festival and was nominated for "Best Non-Fiction Film" at Sundance International Festival. From Hollywood to Hanoi, executive produced by Oliver Stone, is the personal account of an actress's rediscovery of her homeland, and her quest for reconciliation between her two identities, Vietnamese and American. From Hollywood to Hanoi will be expanded as part of a Vietnam Trilogy and reissued in 2025, the 50th anniversary of the end of the war.
In 1996 Tiana's husband, Stirling Silliphant, passed away in Bangkok of bone cancer. As a widow of peace, Tiana continued to film in Viet Nam to open new doors and to transcend her grief. One labor of love has lasted over three decades: a personal portrait of her father's history teacher, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the Commander of the North Vietnamese Army during both the French and the American wars. General Giap welcomed Tiana as a daughter returning home. She also met the Hanoi Politburo and iconic "enemy" leaders - all of whom expressed hope for healing and reconciliation. The resulting feature documentary, The General & Me is slated for 2025 release alongside the reissue of From Hollywood to Hanoi.
In the late '90s, Tiana became the muse for another prolific Oscar-winning writer, Christopher Hampton.
A Tony Award Celebration was organized by Tiana in 2009 in conjunction with the successful run of Yasmina Reza's Broadway play God of Carnage - translated by Christopher Hampton. The event celebrated the play's six Tony nominations and three wins, and honored Hampton's 50 plays and screenplays. James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden, Philip Glass and Phillip Noyce participated in the short documentary that Tiana created from the event.
In 2009 Tiana also filmed an odyssey to find the spirit of Michael Jackson in Beverly Hills and Vietnam, with Le Ly Hayslip - the author and subject of Oliver Stone's feature film Heaven & Earth (1993). Le Ly and Tiana visited the site of Jackson's death and documented the throngs of fans and impersonators carrying on his legacy in the U.S. and around the world.
As co-owner of Christopher Hampton's stage play The Talking Cure, Tiana was instrumental in developing the project into a feature film directed by David Cronenberg. The film, re-titled A Dangerous Method (2011), starred Michael Fassbender as Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung, and Keira Knightley as his patient and mistress. Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant is credited as Associate Producer on the 2011 release, and documented the behind the scenes development of the project.
In 2012, Alexandra and Christopher Hampton formed Hampton Silliphant Management & Productions, which presented the play Appomattox at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The play concerns itself with historic events in America, 100 years apart in time: the historic meetings between Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee, in tandem with Abraham Lincoln and Fredrick Douglass in 1865, and the later machinations of Lyndon Johnson, J. Edgar Hoover and Martin Luther King - which ultimately led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Appomattox was also performed as an opera with Philip Glass at The Kennedy Center in 2015.
In 2020, Tiana went on location in Malaysia to join partner Christopher Hampton (Screenwriter, Executive Producer) and crew, filming the international TV mini-series The Singapore Grip (2020). Tiana documented "the making of" the six-episode drama - which portrayed the intrigues and ultimate upheaval of British colonialism during the Fall of Singapore in WWII.
From late 2020 through 2021 Tiana has been traveling the United states collecting stories and characters for a new series entitled Detour 66. The project follows in the tracks of her late husband Stirling Silliphant's TV series, Route 66 (1960), and chronicles the dramas and cultural zeitgeist unfolding across the Divided States of America.
She is also developing a video/podcast series entitled Somebody Nobody Everybody (SNE) which explores personal memoir, social consciousness, health, age reversal and the dating game.
* More than 60 of Tiana Alexandra's films, interviews, music videos, and more are posted on tianaworld.com, vietnamtrilogy.com Tianaworld YouTube & Tianaworld Vimeo. @whyvietnamseries & @tianaworld Instagram.
