Actor Choi Bul-am died on the night of the 29th while being treated at a Seoul hospital. The Kyunghyang Shinmun gave his age as 87 and the Chosun Ilbo as 86, a gap that appears to stem from a difference between his registered and actual birth years.
Citing Yonhap News, the Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that Choi Bul-am (real name Choi Young-han) died around 10 p.m. on the 29th at a hospital in Seoul’s Gangseo District, where he was an inpatient. The Chosun Ilbo also carried his obituary in the early hours of the 30th, calling him the ‘nation’s father’. No official cause of death was given in the reports.
광고 문의 · 300×250His age is reported differently. The Kyunghyang Shinmun said he was 87, while the Japanese edition of the Chosun Ilbo wrote 86. The Kyunghyang explained that he was born in 1939 but registered as born in 1940, which likely accounts for the difference. This newspaper reports both figures as far as they are confirmed.
From the stage to television’s father figure
Born in Incheon, he attended Jungang High School in Seoul, then Sorabol Arts College and the theater and film department at Hanyang University, and once dreamed of becoming a director. He debuted in 1959 in the experimental troupe Silhomgeukhoe’s production of Hamlet and became a member of the National Theater Company in 1965. In 1967 he joined Seoul Broadcasting System, now KBS, as a sixth-class special-recruit performer, opening his television career.
The work that fixed his name in public memory was MBC’s Sooksa Banjang (Investigation Chief), which ran from 1971 to 1984 and again from 1985 to 1989, with Choi as Chief Park Young-han. He was also long loved as Chairman Kim of Yangchon-ri in MBC’s Farmland Diary (1980–2002) and as Captain Park in You and Me (1997–1998).
On film he appeared in works such as Yeongja’s Heyday (1975), A Good Windy Day (1980) and Our Joyful Young Days (1987). In the 1990s a collection of short jokes bearing his name, the ‘Choi Bul-am series’, became a craze that carried his name across generations. In 2018 he returned to the stage after 25 years in the play When the Wind Blows and the Stars Shake.
Broadcasting and illness to the end
He served in the 14th National Assembly from 1992 as a proportional representative of the Unification National Party, then returned to acting and broadcasting. He hosted KBS’s Good Country Movement from 1999 to 2008 and led KBS 1TV’s The Korean Table for 14 years from 2011, introducing food and people across the country. In 2024 he made special appearances in Sooksa Banjang 1958 and OCN’s Life on Mars, meeting longtime fans and new viewers alike.
According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun, he had back-disc surgery in March last year, which left him unable to move easily, and he left The Korean Table; his health then declined sharply despite rehabilitation. The two-part MBC documentary Ha-ha, I’m Choi Bul-am aired in May this year, but he did not appear at his family’s request so that he could focus on rehabilitation. He is reported to be survived by the actor Kim Min-ja, a son, Dong-nyeok, and a daughter, Dong-bi; funeral arrangements and his list of awards did not appear in the reports this newspaper checked.