Creator
Dy Saveth
Dy Saveth is a Cambodian film actress, a star of the Golden Age of Cambodian cinema in the 1960s and 1970s.
Dy Saveth is a Cambodian film actress. She was one of the best-known stars of the Golden Age of Cambodian cinema, from 1960 to 1975, and one of the few to survive the Khmer Rouge years.[1][2] She left for France in 1975 and returned to Cambodia in 1993.[3]
Early career
She grew up in Phnom Penh in the 1950s. Her grandmother and sisters had danced at the Royal Palace.[1] She won the Miss Cambodia pageant in 1959 and came into films with no idea how to act, she told Voice of America (VOA) Khmer in 2010.[3][1] Her first starring role was in Raft Life in 1962. She went on to appear in more than 100 films, though she lost count after the Khmer Rouge came to power.[3]
Davy Chou names her among the most famous actors of the period, with Kong Sam Oeun, Vichara Dany, Nop Nem and Chea Yuthorn.[2] Cambodge Mag writes that by 1971 she was a star across Southeast Asia, in hits such as The Snake King's Wife and The Crocodile.[1] In 1969 King Norodom Sihanouk cast her in his film Twilight.[1] She told VOA Khmer that she acted with Thai, Chinese, Indonesian, Korean and Taiwanese actors, and sang a duet with Sinn Sisamouth in Khmer and Thai in a film made with Thai actors.[3]
For Snake Girl (1974) she wrote the story with her husband. In it she wore a headdress of live baby snakes.[1]
Exile
In March 1975 she went to Thailand to visit her children, who were studying there. There were no flights back to Cambodia, so she went on to France.[1] She lived in Nice for 18 years.[1] In France she told no one about her film career, since she had no photographs to prove it.[1]
She first came back on a short visit in 1985, in a hat, glasses and a mask so that no one would know her. On a later visit a man from Cambodian national television recognized her in a Phnom Penh street and arranged a television interview.[1]
Return
She returned to Cambodia in 1993.[3][1] Cambodge Mag writes that she has since appeared regularly in Cambodian films and on television. It names her teaching post as the Royal University of Phnom Penh in one passage and the Royal University of Fine Arts in another, where she trains young actresses.[1] She was one of the people Davy Chou interviewed for Golden Slumbers (2011), his documentary about the cinema of the 1960s and 1970s.[2][4]
She acted in The Last Reel (2014). Of the script, she told Cambodge Mag: "I liked the script because it's a true story, not a copy."[1]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 Cambodge Mag, History & Cinema: The long and distinguished career of Dy Saveth (July 18, 2025)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 New Mandala, Davy Chou, Cambodia's little Bollywood (April 9, 2012)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 VOA Khmer, Nuch Sarita, 'Golden Age' actress Dy Saveth on success (July 1, 2010)
- ↑ VOA Khmer, Cambodia's golden age of cinema told on film (October 19, 2011)