Person Biography:
Tiana Alexandra-Silliphant, born Thi Thanh Nga, is a multitalented individual with a diverse background. Born in Saigon, she spent her childhood shuttling between Vietnam and the USA. Her life has been a true adventure, filled with various roles and experiences, including being a child of war, karate princess, bride of God, actress, mom, singer, songwriter, film producer, director, widow of peace, and philanthropist.
As a child of war, Tiana emigrated to the USA with her family to escape the Vietnam conflict. Her father was the 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. Her 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 encouraged her acting skills. They made a pact together to defy stereotypes, with Lee never playing a coolie and Tiana never playing a whore.
Tiana's husband, Stirling Silliphant, was an Oscar-winning TV and film writer who created key roles for Bruce Lee in Hollywood. They were married at Chasen's restaurant, with a cast of all-star guests attending. Stirling wrote for Tiana and was riding high with box office bonanzas like The Towering Inferno, Shaft, and The Poseidon Adventure.
Tiana made her screen debut in Sam Peckinpah's The Killer Elite (1975) and subsequent starring roles included Pearl, Catch the Heat (1987),Fly Away Home (TV 1981),and The Three Kings (1987). She was the first Vietnamese-American to join the Screen Actors Guild.
In 1989, Tiana left her acting career behind to pursue philanthropy and social activism in Vietnam. She was the first person to bring American cameramen to post-war Vietnam to film and share stories about her devastated homeland. Her films forged friendships, not enemies, and she met women and children, as well as 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 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.
Tiana's films include the autobiographical documentary From Hollywood to Hanoi (1992),which was selected as the "Best Of Telluride" at the Telluride Film Festival and nominated for "Best Non-Fiction Film" at the Sundance International Festival. She also made a feature documentary, The General & Me, about her father's history teacher, General Vo Nguyen Giap, the Commander of the North Vietnamese Army during both the French and American wars.
Tiana has been the muse for several prolific writers, including Christopher Hampton, and has collaborated on numerous projects, including the Tony Award-winning play God of Carnage and the feature film A Dangerous Method. She has also been instrumental in developing the stage play Appomattox into a feature film and has documented the behind-the-scenes development of the project.
In recent years, Tiana has been traveling the United States collecting stories and characters for a new series entitled Detour 66, which follows in the tracks of her late husband Stirling Silliphant's TV series, Route 66. 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.
Tiana's work and life experiences can be found on her website, tianaworld.com, and various social media platforms.
