CAMBODIAN ACTOR NGOR FATALLY SHOT.

Byline: David Bloom and Jeannette DeSantis Daily News Staff Writers

Dr. Haing S. Ngor - who survived the killing fields of communist Cambodia, then won an Oscar for his role in a movie about the blood bath - was shot to death Sunday night outside his apartment near Chinatown.

Los Angeles Police Department investigators said they had no motive or suspects in the shooting. They were examining the possibility that Ngor was shot for politically related reasons, but haven't ruled out other motives, said LAPD Cmdr. Tim McBride.

Ngor, a Cambodian physician who fled the Khmer Rouge after the death squads killed most of his family, won the 1985 best supporting actor Academy Award for his portrayal of Dith Pran in the film "The Killing Fields." He was an interpreter for a New York Times reporter covering the brutal purges by the Khmer Rouge.

"When he received the Oscar he made some political statements and since then he has made statements critical of the Cambodian government," McBride said. "That may possibly be a motive. But there could be other motives also. It might have been a robbery."

Police said Ngor was hit by gunfire at 8:49 p.m. as he stepped from his 1986 Mercedes-Benz sedan in the alley outside his apartment on North Beaudry Avenue. Neighbors reported hearing two shots.

"There's not a lot of crime up here," said Lt. Alan Moen. "It's a little baffling at this point. We really don't have much of a direction to go yet."

Moen would not say whether Ngor's wallet or other items were taken.

The killing shocked Ngor's friends, Hollywood and the 50,000-member Southern California Cambodian community.

"People around the world know Cambodia because of him," said Bunna Men, a caseworker at the Cambodian Association of America in Long Beach.

Ngor was plucked for the part in "The Killing Fields" from a Chinatown social services agency where he was working as a counselor, and became the first nonprofessional actor to win an Academy Award since 1947.

Ngor continued to work in the movie business, with a role in Oliver Stone's "Heaven and Earth" two years ago. In 1986, he published a best-selling autobiography.

Ngor kept the small Chinatown apartment he originally rented as an immigrant in 1980 and donated much of his income from movies, lecture circuit fees and royalties from his autobiography to Cambodian relief, his friends said.

"He spent every penny he made in film work on Cambodia relief," said Greg Maher, an assistant agent for Ngor. "It is horribly ironic that he could survive the hell he went through with the Khmer Rouge but gets killed in Los Angeles."

There were discrepancies over his age. The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office said he was 55, but a brother, Hok Ngor of Lancaster, said he was 50.

"My brother did a lot to help the Cambodian people," said Hok Ngor.

Hok Ngor said his brother spent most of his time in Cambodia and had just returned to the United States two weeks ago.

On Monday night, Cambodian-Americans gathered in Long Beach to plan a memorial service. Tommy Nou, whose sister is married to Hok Ngor, said Haing Ngor was planning to return to Cambodia next week to help make a documentary about land mines still dotting the Cambodian landscape.

Yen Do, publisher of the Little Saigon newspaper Nguoi Viet in Westminster, Calif., said rumors were swirling Monday within the Southeast Asian communities about a political motive for Ngor's killing.

"People would tell him to run for office in Cambodia," he said. The publisher knew Ngor for the past 10 years. "But he never wanted to be a politician he just wanted to work for reform."

The publisher said Ngor was not associated with a specific political group but was a "great personality who had influence and was very easy to recognize."

Neighbors at Ngor's apartment complex said they were shocked by the shooting, but none of those interviewed reported witnessing anything.

Police and residents, many of them Southeast Asian emigrants from Cambodia, Vietnam and China, said the neighborhood is a quiet one, with relatively little crime, though virtually all households have bars and security screens on windows and doors.

Ngor's apartment is in a relatively poor neighborhood of cheap apartments and few small houses on a steep hillside overlooking the downtown Los Angeles skyline.

Residents of the apartments overlooking the location where Ngor was killed said they heard gunshots about the time of the incident but thought they were either firecrackers from Chinese New Year's celebrants or programming from television.

"I heard a pow, pow, pow, but I didn't know (it was an attack outside)," said Seang Soun, a Cambodian who lived in an apartment across the alley from Ngor. "There's pow, pow, pow every day with Chinese New Year."

Rifka Hirsch, executive director of The Cambodian Family Inc., a nonprofit organization that works with Cambodian refugees, said Ngor was easily the best known member of the country's expatriate community.

"He was active for the Cambodian people," said Hirsch.

"He's appreciated because he told that story," Hirsch said.

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(1 -- color) Los Angeles police officers stand outside the apartment building where Dr. Haing S. Ngor was slain Sunday. Terri Thuente/Daily News (2 -- colro) Haing S. Ngor Awarded Oscar in 1985