Iconic Korean actress Yun Jung-hee, best-known internationally for her leading role in Lee Chang-dong’s Cannes-awarded Poetry, has died in France at the age of 78.
A leading star in what is known as the heyday of Korean films in the 1960s and 1970s, the actress was known to have suffered from Alzheimer’s disease in recent years.
She died in Paris on Thursday (January 19), local time, according to Yonhap news agency.
Born in 1944 in Busan, Yun shot to stardom with her debut film Sorrowful Youth (1967), a top hit for which she was cast in what was said to have been a 1,200:1 open audition while attending Chosun University.
She picked up South Korea’s most prestigious Grand Bell and Blue Dragon awards for that film and several others over the years, as well as the LA Film Critics’ Association award and Asia Pacific Screen award for best actress for her performance in Poetry (2010).
From the 1960s to 1980s she starred in numerous films including Kim Soo-yong’s Mist (1967), Choi Ha-won’s An Old Potter (1969) and A Shaman’s Story (1972), action films Golden Operation 70 in Hong Kong (1970) and Chase The Woman (1970) - the latter directed by Im Kwon-taek, and Park Ho-tae’s Liberal Wife ’81 (1981).
In the midst of her acting career, Yun also continued her studies. She got her first master’s degree at Chung-Ang University, where she wrote a thesis on the evolution of Korean actresses and their cinematic significance over the years, and went to France where she earned another master’s degree in film studies at the New Sorbonne University (aka Paris III).
It was in France that she met celebrated pianist Paik Kun-woo and married him in 1976.
After her award-winning performance in Um Jong-sun’s Manmubang (1994), she took a 16-year hiatus from acting until her return in Lee’s Cannes best screenplay award-winning Poetry.
She picked up multiple awards for her performance in the film as a grandmother trying to learn how to compose poetry for the first time while struggling with her teenage grandson’s delinquency.
Yun is survived by her husband Paik and a daughter.
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