KBS

At 8:30 p.m. on the 12th, KBS2 ‘The Secret of the Celebrity Soldier’ will reveal the late Lee Soon-jae's meticulous self-care methods.

It shines a spotlight on the life of the ‘evergreen’ actor Lee Soon-jae, who kept the stage until the very end of his life. This broadcast covers his burning passion that sustained a 70-year acting career on sheer tenacity alone, and behind-the-scenes stories from his battle with illness that had not yet been disclosed.

In January 2025, Lee Soon-jae seized the first KBS Acting Grand Prize of his 70-year career. It was the first time he had received the top prize as a pure acting award, not a merit honor. Three months after suspending activities due to declining health, he stepped onto the stage looking gaunt and began his acceptance speech calmly: “When you live long enough, a day like this does come.” For his final words he said, “I owe you so much,” and his eyes welled up. What did those tears mean? Even in his nineties, why did he never let go of the script?

A desperate struggle from the filming of the KBS drama ‘Gaesori’, which brought him the Grand Prize, is revealed. Though his zeal overflowed more than ever after landing a lead role for the first time in a while, it was hard to disregard his advanced age. In the middle of production he was diagnosed with cataracts and had to undergo surgery immediately. When the production team advised him to take time off afterward, he refused outright. The reason was, “I cannot cause harm to 70 to 80 staff members.”

When he stood before the camera again a fortnight later, he still could not see well. His hearing had worsened too, and sounds were hard to catch. On top of that, because 70% of the shoot took place in Geoje, he had to endure long-distance travel each time. In these extreme conditions of diminished sight and hearing, he finished the project by memorizing lines through his ears as his manager read them to him, and his tenacity will be conveyed intact.

In the broadcast, Park So-dam, who performed with Lee Soon-jae in the play ‘My Grandfather Henri and Me’, and his ‘eternal daughter-in-law’ Park Hae-mi appear as guests to share special memories with him. In particular, Park So-dam related an anecdote about the astonishing memorization she witnessed from the first script-reading session with Lee Soon-jae. As testified by his juniors, Lee arrived on set earlier than anyone and was an actor for whom it was rare to see a flubbed take.

The secret lay not in innate talent but in meticulous self-management sustained throughout his life. In practice, he trained his memory by reeling off the names of U.S. presidents as well as British prime ministers. Adding to this, his habit of avoiding alcohol and cigarettes helped him maintain his stamina as an ‘evergreen’ actor. Meanwhile, MC Lee Chan-won, famous as a lover of drink, reportedly turned the set into a sea of laughter when, seeing Lee Soon-jae practice strict self-discipline, he quipped, “Still, I do not smoke.”

Specialist Lee Nak-joon explained, “The habit of repeatedly memorizing specific information actually helps to maintain or increase the storage capacity of the brain.” He added that without abstaining from drinking and smoking in parallel, maintaining such memorization would not have been easy. The strength that allowed Lee Soon-jae to stand on stage for so long ultimately came from rigorous self-management and unceasing effort. All of this was like a miracle born of his desire to keep acting until the very moment he died.

At the age of eighty-nine, his final stage appearance was the play ‘Waiting for Waiting for Godot’. About two months after the run began, while he was still keeping the stage, one day he headed straight to the hospital as soon as the curtain fell. It was ‘pneumonia’. As the hospitalization that began in this way grew longer, one day a faint sound leaked from his room. What was the nature of that sound that astonished everyone? The great actor Lee Soon-jae wanted to remain an actor until the moment the last light of his life was going out. His magnificent acting journey can be seen on KBS2 ‘The Secret of the Celebrity Soldier’ at 8:30 p.m. on May 12.