Choi Jin-sil

Choi Jin-sil (December 24, 1968 – October 2, 2008) was a South Korean actress.

Choi was born as the first child to her parents Choi Guk-hyeon and Jung Ok-suk on December 24, 1968, in Seoul.

Choi admired Kang, who started her career as a child actress in the 1970s.

She used to secretly watch the actress outside her class and even sat in her seat when no one else was in the room.

She showed aptitude for physical education and was especially talented in art, winning various competitions, and her teacher encouraged her to go to art school.

Her family was so poor that her mother once managed the household by running a pojangmacha (a small street stall selling foods) when her father ran away from home.

She gave up going to art school and it was only through her blind (habitual) "going to school," and the support of friends and teachers that she was able to graduate from high school.

A biology teacher even paid Choi's tuition out of his own salary.

She dreamed of becoming a star to escape poverty.

She said in talk shows her nickname during her school days was "Choisujebi" because she used to eat sujebi (a dumpling soup) instead of ordinary meals due to the home environment.

Although she later became the highest taxpayer among celebrities, she was known for frugality, even receiving Presidential Commendations for her savings activity.

Her mother separated from her father in 1985 and divorced him in 1998.

She had a younger brother, Choi Jin-young, who was an actor and singer, and two elder half-brothers, brought in by her father from a previous relationship.

Her mother only knew of the other children after marrying her father.

When she was two years old, her father, a taxi driver, contracted tuberculous pleurisy and was unable to work, selling the taxi he owned.

At the age of four, she lived with her extended family—father, mother, younger brother, three aunts, three uncles, and a grandmother—in a rundown three-room shack in the mountain village of Gupabal.

Her poverty-stricken mother took Choi and her younger brother up a hill to commit suicide, but the attempt failed and they returned home crying.

When she was ten, her father went to work as a laborer in the Middle East, and her family moved to Bulgwang-dong, Eunpyeong-gu.

She attended Dongmyeong Girls' Middle School while actress Kang Soo-yeon attended Dongmyeong Girls' High School, and both schools are located within the same fence.

She and her younger brother worked on their acting skills together and they passed the KBS Talent Recruitment Test in 1986.

However, their mother did not want her to enter the entertainment industry, and she was unable to pay for her training at the broadcaster, so her dreams of becoming an actress were put on hold.

In 1987, Choi graduated from Seonil Girls' High School.

She could not afford to enter art school, so she got a job at a hotel in Seoul, right after graduation.

However, she could not give up on her acting dreams and quit the hotel in 1988 and went on a two-month hunger strike.

After a while, their mother surrenders and her brother helps her.

Her brother, who was a senior in high school, had been working as an advertising model since his freshman year.

He personally took her portfolio pictures and visited modeling agencies with her.

Eventually, she was cast for a minor role in a commercial and began in Korea's entertainment circles as an advertising film model.

She began to gain celebrity status in an advertising campaign for Samsung Electronics in which she acted as a newly wedded housewife.

Her appearance caused great reactions not only among the public, but also in the advertising and entertainment industries.

The "Choi Jin-sil Syndrome" was called a cultural phenomenon and casting offers poured in.

In 1988, she became a TV actress starring in the MBC historical drama, 500 Years of Joseon: Hanjungrok and steadily appeared in supporting roles on television for a year.

Her film work includes North Korea's Southern Army (1990), My Love, My Bride (1990), Susanne Brink's Arirang (1991) and The Letter (1997).

Widely regarded as the most popular actress of her time, she led the entertainment industry in terms of commercial success across film, television, and advertising.

She played leading roles in 18 films and 20 television dramas, appeared in hundreds of advertisements, and won several awards.

Her first film was Nambugun: North Korean Partisan in South Korea (1990), and her performance in the film as a partisan nurse won her the Best New Actress awards at the 11th Blue Dragon Film Awards and Chunsa Film Art Awards.

In the same year, she played the leading role in the hit movie My Love, My Bride (1990) and won Best New Actress at the 29th Grand Bell Awards and the Korean Association of Film Critics Awards, establishing her as an advertising model-turned film actress.

Both films are the second highest-grossing Korean films of 1990 and 1991, respectively.

She was considered one of the best actresses in South Korea, nicknamed "The Nation's Actress" for playing leading roles in some of the highest-rated Korean dramas of all time such as Jealousy (1992), Season of Storms (1993), Star in My Heart (1997), You and I (1997) and My Rosy Life (2005).

She was 39 when she died by suicide by hanging on October 2, 2008, at her home in Seoul.