Thuy Trang (December 14, 1973 – September 3, 2001) was a Vietnamese actress based in the United States. She was known for portraying Trini Kwan, the first Yellow Ranger, on the original cast of the television series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. She appeared in 80 episodes from 1993 to 1994, which included the entire first season, and the first twenty episodes of the second.
Trang's father was a South Vietnamese army officer who fled the country in 1975 after the fall of Saigon, leaving his family behind. When Trang was six, she and her mother and brothers boarded a cargo ship bound for Hong Kong, a difficult journey during which Trang became very ill. They reunited with Trang's father in the United States in 1980 and settled in California. She enrolled at the University of California, Irvine to study civil engineering, but switched her focus to acting after a talent scout spotted her. Trang was chosen for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, her first major role, after participating in an audition process that included about 500 actresses. Like the other cast members, Trang mostly portrayed her character in scenes when she was out of her Power Rangers uniform; the in-costume fight scenes were footage adapted from the long-running Japanese television series Super Sentai, with Trang's voice dubbed over the action. She performed many of her own stunts, and was repeatedly hurt on the set.
Trang left Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in the middle of the second season, along with fellow cast members Austin St. John and Walter Emanuel Jones, due to contractual and payment disputes and was replaced by Karan Ashley as a new Yellow Ranger named Aisha Campbell. She had a brief appearance in the film Spy Hard and played a lead villain in the film The Crow: City of Angels, both in 1996. Trang had planned to appear in several films along with St. John and Jones, but none were ultimately made, as Trang died in a car crash at the age of 27.
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Early life
Trang Thùy was born in Saigon, South Vietnam (now Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), on December 14, 1973, to father Ky Trang and mother Be Trang. Her ethnic background consisted of Vietnamese, Chinese and French nationalities. She had two brothers and one sister. Her father, a South Vietnamese army (ARVN) officer, was tasked with protecting Saigon from the North Vietnamese army. After the fall of Saigon in 1975, he was forced to leave his family behind and fled the country, immigrating to the United States. Trang and her family lived in a detention camp as her father petitioned the U.S. government for political asylum for his family. They fled Saigon when Trang was two years old.
In 1979 when Trang was five, she and her family secretly boarded a cargo ship bound for Hong Kong. It was a very difficult journey, with people packed tightly due to limited space, lacking in food and water. The trip lasted about eight or nine months, and at least four people died. Trang went long periods of time without eating and fell ill, with her mother having to force food down her throat while she was unconscious to keep her alive. At one point, the other passengers wrongly believed Trang to be dead and wanted to throw her body overboard to make more room for the other refugees, but her mother prevented them from doing so. Trang's family and her father were eventually reunited in the United States in 1980, and settled in the city of Fountain Valley, California.
Trang did not speak English upon first arriving in the United States and had to learn it. Trang began studying Shaolin kung fu, and eventually received a black belt. Trang said of studying kung fu:
It's really good because it builds a lot of character and it makes me stronger as a person, especially going through all the stuff I went through, coming over here to America. It just teaches me a lot about who I am and what I am, and about respect, discipline, patience, and perseverance, and endurance.
Trang's father died in 1991 when she was 18. She graduated from Banning High School in the Wilmington neighborhood of Los Angeles, and enrolled at the University of California, Irvine to study civil engineering, planning to follow her father and siblings into the field. Trang's hobbies included playing tennis, jogging, and reading romance novels. She also had a dog named Nia. Trang switched her focus to acting after a chance run in with a talent scout while hanging out with friends. This led to an introductory acting class at UCI in 1992 where she was spotted for a commercial for the Church of Scientology, even though she herself was a Buddhist. Trang, the first person in her family to study acting, said she intended to later finish her education despite undertaking an acting career.
Career
Power Rangers
Trang earned her first major role in 1993, as Trini Kwan, the Yellow Ranger in the original cast of the TV series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Her agent arranged for her to participate in an audition process that included about 500 actresses of various races. Casting director Katy Wallin said the day of Trang's screen test, "Thuy was so nervous that she almost couldn't complete her final callback." She was paired with Jason David Frank, the martial arts instructor and actor who went on to portray the Green Ranger Tommy Oliver, during the audition. It took place before a room of about 20 executives and required each actor to read the part and present their physical skills. Wallin told Trang to run into the room screaming, jump onto the audition table, and perform a karate move. Trang did so, then quietly stepped off the table, did her reading, and walked out of the room. Wallin said of her screen test: "I loved her and was very proud of her fearless approach to becoming the Yellow Ranger." The pool of finalists for the part was narrowed down to 10 actresses, then five, then three, before Trang was finally selected.
The role was originated by actress Audri Dubois in the pilot episode before Trang took over the part. After securing the role, Trang moved from Fountain Valley to Los Angeles to be closer to the set of the show, which she found to be a major adjustment. Trang described her character as having "quick hands and a peaceful soul", and felt the character was inspiring for viewers who have long desired an Asian superhero: "Asians are not portrayed in the media very well, and there are not many roles for Asian people except for the stereotypes – gangsters, hookers, things like that. A lot of older Asian people come up to me and say that I'm doing a service to the Asian community."
While Trang and the other cast members appeared in scenes with the characters out of the Power Rangers costumes, the in-costume fight scenes were footage adapted from the long-running Japanese television series Super Sentai. In that series, the Yellow Ranger was a male character, but the American show producers wanted more female characters in their cast, so they changed the character to a female during out-of-costume scenes and dubbed Trang's voice over the male actor's performance in the Japanese scenes. This is why the Yellow Ranger costume does not have a skirt like the Pink Ranger, who was female in both the Japanese and American versions of the show. The decision to put Trang, an Asian American actress, into the role of Yellow Ranger has received criticism and been the subject of jokes due to the connotation of yellow as an ethnic slur. Producers have said that race had nothing to do with colors of the costumes.
Post-Power Rangers
On January 4, 1995, Trang and her Power Rangers co-stars St. John and Jones hosted an informational session about martial arts at the United States Capitol building in Washington, D.C., where they taught basic techniques to Newt Gingrich and other members of the United States House of Representatives from the 104th United States Congress. Trang and St. John were interviewed on The Encyclopedia of Martial Arts, a 1995 documentary that explored the history of Asian martial arts and the role they have played in the Hollywood film industry. Trang made cameo appearances in martial arts videos made by St. John and Jones. Trang, St. John, and Jones also planned to unite for a live touring stage and arena show. She made a guest appearance at the Little Saigon Tet Festival, an event honoring Vietnamese culture, in Westminster, California, on February 4, 1995. During the festival, she spoke about her time on Power Rangers, other aspects of her career, and her experiences trying to break into film and television as an Asian-American actress.
Trang's first film role was a manicurist in the 1996 movie Spy Hard. Trang was mistakenly credited as playing a masseuse in the film; her screen credit was accidentally switched with Tara Leon, who played a masseuse in the same short but was credited as a manicurist. Trang later played a lead villain, Kali, in the feature film The Crow: City of Angels, also released in 1996. She was not cast until very late in the pre-production process, right before filming began. Trang played Kali, a member of a gang led by notorious drug kingpin Judah Earl, who killed the protagonist, mechanic Ashe Corven, and his eight-year-old son after they witnessed Judah's henchmen murdering a fellow drug dealer. Trang's character was killed by a resurrected Corven after a fight scene. Dougal Macdonald, a writer with The Canberra Times who was otherwise critical of the film, described Trang as "deliciously evil". Other reviewers were more negative about Trang's performance: The Advocate writer John Wirt called her "a flop", and Jon Bowman of The Santa Fe New Mexican said her "sneer is her most pronounced feature".
A cameo appearance by the Trini Kwan character was written in an early draft of Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997), but Kwan's scene was never filmed. Trang had planned to appear in several films in the mid-1990s along with her Power Rangers co-stars St. John and Jones, including Cyberstrike, Act of Courage, and Children of Merlin, the latter of which was to be developed by Landmark Entertainment Group. None of the three films were ultimately made. Additionally, Trang was expected to appear in a TV show called The Adventures of Tracie Z, which also never came to fruition, though a pilot was apparently filmed.
Death
On September 3, 2001, Trang was traveling with her friend, actress and model Angela Rockwood, for whose upcoming marriage to Dustin Nguyen, where Trang was set to be a bridesmaid. They were passengers in a car traveling on Interstate 5 between San Jose and Los Angeles. The driver, another bridesmaid named Steffiana de la Cruz, struck loose gravel in a groove along the side of the road and lost control of the vehicle. The car swerved violently across the road, hit the roadside rock face, flipped several times before hitting the safety rail and plunging over the bank and into a second rock face. Rockwood was thrown 35 feet out of the car and survived, but her spinal cord was severed and she was rendered paraplegic. De La Cruz also survived the crash. Trang suffered internal injuries and died while in a helicopter which was transporting her to the hospital.
Trang's body was cremated a week later on September 10, which was when her death was first reported, and her ashes were either scattered or interred at Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier, California, though there is no headstone for her. Her Power Rangers co-stars Amy Jo Johnson and David Yost attended the funeral and memorial service. Fellow co-stars Walter Emanuel Jones and Austin St. John also sent condolences. Jones said of Trang: "It hurt my heart to lose her. She was way too young and had so much more to share with the world. ... Her energy drew you in, and her smile made your heart feel safe." Johnson said: "I'll always remember her spunky, strong personality. She was such a bright light. It's hard to believe she's gone." The episode "Circuit Unsure" of Power Rangers Time Force, the first Power Rangers episode to air after her death, was dedicated to Trang's memory, as was the 2023 special Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always, which was also dedicated to Jason David Frank, who had died by suicide in November 2022.
Legacy
In the 2017 film adaptation of the original series, the Trini Kwan character, portrayed by singer Becky G, has a scene wearing a T-shirt with "1973" on it, the year of Trang's birth, as an homage to the original actress. Austin St. John, Trang's co-star from the original series, said of the new film: "One of the hardest roles for me to accept was Trini's role because Thuy is gone now. It would be tough for me to see anybody in that role." Some fans were offended by marketing posters for the film that they considered disrespectful to Trang's memory. The promo showed an image of the Becky G's Yellow Ranger standing on her Zord, along with the text "Driver's Ed not required." Several fans responded on the social media platforms Facebook and Twitter that the message was offensive because Trang died in a car crash, with some users replying with the hashtag "#JusticeforThuy". The official Twitter account of the Power Rangers franchise removed the posts in response to the criticism, although international distributor eOne Films, which had also released the same tweets, did not remove them.
The film Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always, which was produced to celebrate the franchise's 30th anniversary, is dedicated to the memory of Trang and Jason David Frank. The special was written and filmed with Trang's legacy in mind and focuses on the aftermath of the 1993 series' in-universe death of Trini Kwan. Frank died while the film was in production, leading to the use of additional stock footage and a joint dedication.
