The peaceful and happy old age of Meritorious Artist Le Van

The film “When October Comes” by director Dang Nhat Minh, released in 1984, has become a classic masterpiece of the Vietnamese revolutionary cinema industry. The film won the Golden Lotus Award for “Best Film” at the 7th Vietnam Film Festival in 1985. Notably, “When October Comes” was honored by CNN as one of the 18 best Asian films of all time.

Movie poster "When will October come?"

Le Van as Duyen.

Meritorious Artist Le Van plays the role of Duyen - a wife who visits her husband at the southwestern border but hears that he has died. Not wanting this shocking news to worry her family, she decides to keep it a secret and asks Khang - a teacher in the village - to pretend to be her husband and write a letter to ask about her family. Duyen must silently endure the pain of losing her husband, while also listening to the gossip of the villagers about her relationship with Khang.

The role of Duyen has brought Le Van many domestic and international film awards. But most importantly, the image of the war widow with great sacrifice has been imprinted in the hearts of Vietnamese fans for decades after the film was released.

A short but successful career

Meritorious Artist Le Van was born in 1958 in Hanoi, in a family with an artistic tradition with her father, People's Artist Tran Tien, her mother, Meritorious Artist Le Mai, her uncle, Meritorious Artist Le Chuc, and two younger sisters, actresses Le Khanh and Le Vi.

The actress's former beauty.

Three sisters Le Khanh, Le Van, Le Vi.

Since childhood, the three sisters Le Van, Le Khanh and Le Vi showed artistic talent, but the eldest sister Le Van is the one with the most brilliant career. Initially, Le Van started out as a dancer but accidentally fell in love with cinema.

She has had an admirable acting career with many diverse roles: from the rustic and hard-working Chi Dau in the 1981 film of the same name, to the scheming concubine Dang Thi Hue in"Long Tri Festival"(1989).

Le Van plays the role of the hard-working and self-sacrificing Chi Dau.

Le Van plays the role of Imperial Concubine Dang Thi Hue in "Long Tri Night Festival" (1989).

However, the image of a young wife who lost her husband in"When is October?"This is truly the role of her life. With her outstanding acting talent, Le Van created Duyen - the embodiment of typical qualities of Vietnamese women: kind, loyal, and full of sacrifice. This role brought her the award"Best Actress"at the Vietnam Film Festival in 1985.

The melancholy beauty of Le Van in the role of Duyen.

The sudden "disappearance" from acting and the controversial autobiography

In 1995, at the peak of her career, Le Van suddenly withdrew from acting and went into hiding. After personally “cutting off” her career, she had a long period of silence, with almost no contact with the press.

Unexpectedly, 10 years later, Le Van released an autobiography.“Le Van: Love and Live”In the book, she shares very honestly about her miserable childhood and family, the conflicts between her parents, and then her stormy love life with 3 marriages.

Le Van's candid sharing not only caused controversy in the press, but also "shocked" her relatives, the people she mentioned in her autobiography. When asked about the purpose of writing the book, she said she had no intention of "exposing herself", but considered it an opportunity to share, express and confess. Despite the controversy caused by the autobiography, Le Van affirmed that thanks to it, she felt more peaceful and more understanding with her family.

"Hanoi beauty" is beautiful but has many flaws

The detail that readers pay most attention to in Le Van's autobiography is her troubled marriage with 3 love affairs. Le Van's first marriage only lasted 14 days. At that time, the State did not provide housing for single people, so in a moment of "depression", she decided to register her marriage with a man who had been pursuing her for a long time so that he could apply for a house. But Le Van soon realized that she had no feelings for her future husband, and then she was the one who took the initiative to make the decision to divorce.

The second time, she married a French-Vietnamese man who had been married before and had 3 children. However, because their love faded and they had no children together, Le Van ended her second relationship after 10 years of living together.

It was not until her third husband - a Dutch man named Abraham - that Le Van found complete happiness. They had two children together and enjoyed a peaceful life abroad.

Children of three actors Le Van, Le Khanh, Le Vi.

A peaceful and happy life in old age

Since the controversy over her 2006 autobiography, Le Van has appeared less and less in public.

Recently, actress Le Vi posted some lines sharing about her sister's "transformation" since leaving the spotlight: "Suddenly she became incredibly young again, she was cheerful, emotional, innocent and free-spirited as if to make up for her short childhood. She dared to open wide the door of her soul that she had previously kept tightly (not knowing for what purpose), making us all shocked and amazed as if in a dream."

Three artist sisters with the same mother, Meritorious Artist Le Mai.

Rare image of Le Van at present.

In an interview in 2019, Meritorious Artist Le Van said that she felt satisfied being a “normal person” and that no one recognized her. She is currently living a private, peaceful life with her family and often doing charity work with friends.

Talking about the meaning of happiness, Le Van said: “Before, I did not believe in the word happiness because it was “confined” to the extremely narrow scope of couples. Now, I have realized that the meaning of happiness is much greater when we know how to love and share.”

Le Van does charity work with friends.

Pham Ngoc