Footage of veteran actor Lee Soon Jae six months before his passing has been made public.
The November 28 broadcast of the MBC memorial documentary ‘Actor Lee Soon Jae, Thank You for Everything’ featured scenes filmed on May 25, showing the late actor lying in a hospital bed. He recalled, “After filming ‘Dog Knows Everything’ for KBS2 last October and coming out of the studio, I realized I couldn’t see. When I went to the hospital, they told me I had lost vision in my left eye.”
When his agency CEO Lee Seung Hee urged, “Please focus only on your health,” Lee Soon Jae replied, “All right.” Asked if there was anything he wanted to do once he recovered, he answered, “The only thing I want to do is act.”
Lee Seung Hee added that few people knew the true extent of his condition. “Lee Soon Jae couldn’t see with his left eye, and his right eye was not at full vision either,” the CEO said. “Even then, he insisted, ‘I need to keep working.’ What broke my heart the most was that because he could not see, he would ask me or his manager, ‘Read it out loud for me.’ He said, ‘If you read it, I will memorize it.’ Hearing that was truly painful,” she said in tears.
Actress Song Ok Sook also shared her memories. “He could not see, but he made up for it through effort. He once told me, ‘An actor who does not make an effort or take on challenges is not an actor.’ I think he had confidence that he could still do it, and he showed that he could.”
Lee Soon Jae passed away in the early hours of November 25 and was laid to rest at Eden Paradise in Icheon. He appeared in the plays ‘Waiting for Godot’ and ‘Dog Knows Everything’ last year, but halted activities in October due to health concerns.
With ‘Dog Knows Everything’, he received his first major acting award and became the oldest recipient in history. The government has posthumously awarded him the Gold Crown Order of Cultural Merit, which is the highest honor in the cultural and arts sector. He is the third recipient, following Youn Yuh Jung in 2021 and Lee Jung Jae in 2022.
SHARE
