Veteran Actress Jeon Sook, the "Salt of the Film Industry," Passes Away at 98

Veteran actress Jeon Sook, who played mother roles for over 60 years, has passed away at the age of 98.

The late actor who appeared in the movie 'Mangryeong-ui Gok' (1980) [Photo by Korea Film Archive, captured from Yonhap News homepage]

According to her family on the 1st, Jeon Sook (田淑, real name Jeon Gap-rye) passed away at 4:20 a.m. on September 29 in Incheon.

Born in 1926, she began her acting career in 1955 when director Jeon Chang-geun (1907?1972) offered her a role in the film Phoenix Hill, playing a character carrying a child during a wedding scene. She appeared in hundreds of films in supporting and minor roles up to the 2017 film Keys to the Heart. According to the Korean Film Industry Information Survey, she mainly portrayed strict mothers or caring birth mothers. She also played the lead role in the play The Day of Marriage.

She received the Special Acting Award at the 30th Grand Bell Awards in 1992 for I Call You an Angel and was honored as a meritorious film person at the 39th Film Day ceremony in 2001. She is survived by two sons and one daughter. After the funeral on the 1st, she was cremated and interred in a woodland cemetery in Incheon.

Director Shin Jeong-gyun, who worked with her, said, “Perhaps not many film fans remember her. She appeared in 498 works until 2013,” adding, “No one calls her a star of the film industry. However, I consider her the salt of the film world. I applaud Mrs. Jeon Sook, who devoted all her passion and life to her work.”