Actor Baek Il-seop conveyed a heavy heart as he sent off the late Lee Soon-jae.
On the 27th, Baek Il-seop told OSEN in a phone call that he had exchanged final farewells with the late Lee Soon-jae, saying, "He was a great man. I served him as my big brother for 50 years and learned a lot. As you live long you begin to resemble his character. I also learned a lot," he said.
Lee Soon-jae passed away on the 25th. Born in 1934 in Hwaryeong, Hamgyeongbuk-do, the late Lee Soon-jae debuted in 1956 with the play "Beyond the Horizon." The late Lee Soon-jae, who became a contracted actor in TBC's first class in 1965 and whose career ran alongside the history of Korean broadcasting, appeared in Na Do Human I Shall Become, Donguibogam, Look Again and Again, The Three Kims Era, Men of the Bathhouse, The Age of Wanderers, Land, Mother Is Furious, What Is Love, Sorrowful Song, Queen Inmok, Sangno, Independence Gate, Heo Jun, Sangdo, Isan, High Kick Through the Roof, High Kick Through the Roof II, and Nonsense, among others, and appeared in the plays The 100-Year-Old Man I Met, Henri's Grandfather and I, Death of a Salesman, King Lear, and Waiting for Godot.
In his seventies he acted in sitcoms, in his nineties he took the stage in plays, showing an age-defying passion for acting, and Lee Soon-jae, who had recently served as a distinguished professor at Gachon University and worked to train juniors, withdrew midrun from the play "Waiting for Godot" in October last year due to health problems and had been working on recovery, but ultimately passed away.
Baek Il-seop said, "What I remember is I said, 'Let's do it until we're 95,' and he said, 'Okay,' so I said, 'I'll follow you and do it until I'm 95 too.' But he couldn't make it four more years," he said, unable to hide his bitterness.
He added of the deceased, "I thought he would dust himself off and get up. Actually, I had a premonition. Winning the grand prize at the KBS awards. It's not a place to talk about that. In a way that became his farewell," referring to the moment when Lee Soon-jae won his first grand prize at the 2024 KBS Drama Awards for the KBS2 drama 'Nonsense,' which aired last year. At the time Lee Soon-jae said, "To the viewers who came and encouraged me until late at night, to the viewers watching at home, I have owed you and received a lot of help throughout my life. Thank you," and was moved to tears.
Regarding this, Baek Il-seop said, "I did have a premonition then. He didn't look very well. He was a proud man and not someone who would readily accept being supported by others," adding, "Even while sick he said he was doing theater, so he rehearsed. Even though he was in pain he tried to do whatever he could. Maybe he intended to die on stage," he said.
Baek Il-seop also recalled, "He was someone who had an enormous appetite for work. These days people store scripts on their phones, but he was an analog person. He carried a notebook, and it was packed. There were no blank spaces. Once I asked him, 'Why have you been working all this time?' Even while doing one play he was preparing another. He really loved working," he recalled.
Especially, Baek Il-seop said, "When I first went to pay my respects, I greeted him, had only one shot of soju and left. But I couldn't possibly go home, so I went back. I sat in front of the portrait, looked at his face and said, 'Brother, it's so unfair that you left without being able to work more,' and his son next to me said, '(In his lifetime) he felt a lot of unfairness.' I didn't want to show that an old man like me was crying, so I greeted and left," he said, drawing emotion.
He said, "Ten years ago when we did 'Grandpas Over Flowers' I was in my early seventies and Brother Soon-jae was my current age (80). Even so he flew around energetically. He didn't drink or smoke in life, so that was probably possible. He used to eat only a little. But if he had rested a bit more and eaten more, he might have lived longer," he said, unable to hide his bitterness.
Baek Il-seop, who is not in good health himself, added in response to the plea "I hope he stays healthy and active on television for a long time," "I also wish to live at least until Brother Soon-jae's age," he added.
Meanwhile, the government posthumously awarded the order of cultural merit (geumbwan) immediately after the deceased's passing, and after the memorial service and the farewell ceremony, the cortege carrying the late Lee Soon-jae headed to his burial place at Eden Paradise in Icheon.
[Photo] Channel Fifteen capture, OSEN DB, photo joint coverage team
[OSEN]