Oh, sad. Veteran actress Yeo Woon-kye passed away on May 22 after battling cancer. She had initially been diagnosed with cancer of the kidneys in 2007, and had seemed to make a full recovery. However, it was not long ago that she found out that the disease had traveled to her lungs.
Yeo was 69 years old and enjoyed a career spanning 47 years; she had been seen in numerous dramas and films over the years — if you’ve been watching dramas for a while, chances are you’ve seen her more than a few times (she was my favorite cranky granny and a great comic as well as dramatic actress).
Yeo Woon-kye began acting in the late 1950s as a university student, although her bona fide debut came when she joined a theater company following graduation in 1962. She had said in an interview of her early days, “My family strongly opposed my becoming an actor, so I had to give it up and decided to go to school to go into teaching, but even after waiting, there was no space available at school. So that’s how I started acting. It was like fate.”
Some of her more recent roles came in dramas like Dae Jang Geum in 2003, My Name Is Kim Sam-soon in 2005, Bad Family in 2006, and Golden Age of the Daughter-in-Law in 2007.
She is survived by her husband, Cha Sang-hoon (72), a former university professor, and two children (one son, one daughter).
Via Yonhap News
Tags: deaths, Yeo Woon-kye
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SAD! i love her in DJG and MNIKSS
rest in peace
RIP. I had no idea she was fighting cancer. She always appeared strong and healthy…
She’ll be remembered.
Wow, I remember her! She was in DJG & MNIKSS, that’s so sad. RIP Yeo Woon-kye
i’m so upset after reading this. i’ve seen her in bad housewife & sam soon drama… this is really upsetting…
aw
may she rest in peace.
this is so sad! i saw her several times on tv including in MNIKSS, Hello Miss and Bad Family, she will be missed…
i hope she can Rest in Peace now.
When I saw the picture first though, I started thinking (another suicide?). So, at least she had a happy life, and got to live her dream. RIP.
RIP. loved her in Bad Family. going to miss seeing her.
Totally sad! D: Rest in peace!
I really loved her in MNIKSS and bad family. May she rest in peace.
this sad news for her family.. at the same time happy since she will have no more pain and suffering.
Rest in Peace. This is so sad.
that’s really sad! i hope she’s happy and peaceful wherever she is right now
This is so sad!
Aww. She was so loveable in Dae Jang Geum.
OMG!!! great, that just depressed my whole day. i absolutely loved her in bad family….
Great Woman R.I.P
This is so sad
I’ve seen her in MNIKSS, Dae Jang Geum, Hello Miss and some other dramas where she played the cranky granny, and she was so good at what she did. I always enjoyed her performances.This is a loss to the Korean entertainment industry. My condolences to her family and friends. RIP.
47 years as an actress….spanning theatre, television and cinema
Just amazing.
What a tremendous life she lived.
One of my favorite veteran actresses!
This is really sad.
i just finished watching Bad Family, she was a really great actress in that.
RIP
She was wonderful in Bad Family – everyone should watch it!
so sad to hear this news…I think she lived her career successfully. too bad that she lost the battle against the Big C…may she rest in peace and she will always be remembered
the young stars come and go, but it is veterans like Yeo Woon-kye who make k-dramas what they are. thank you.
Such a great loss – she will be missed not only by her family and friends but all of us who appreciate her work.
My condolences to her family and friends.
I thought her character as a less than hygenic mandoo granny in Bad Family was a total hoot, which is why I was surprised when she was so serene and nice and more importantly crazy about cleanliness in Dae Jang Geum. I really loved her in every dramas I’ve seen.
She’ll be hugely missed.
So sad.
I’ve seen her in too many dramas to count, with “Bad Family” as probably my favorite role of hers. What a remarkable career she’s had, and what a loss this’ll be to the Korean TV industry.
Condolences to her family and friends. Rest in peace, Yeo WoonKye ssi.
RIP.
I really liked her in dramas. My favourite grandma
Oh no! One of my favorite veteran actresses who I always enjoyed watching, particularly as the mandu ahjumma in Bad Family.
RIP
Oh, this is really sad. May she rest in peace
I respect her spirit a lot. Sam-Soon, War of Money, but the most reminscing one for me is Jeong Sheong Goong in Dae Jang Geum. She was still a hot and sturdy actress in her final years.
May the Cha family and friends of Yeo Woon-kye nim be consoled – she will be dearly remembered.
:’-(
RIP
Yeo Woon-kye was one of those actresses that I saw in many dramas and was always excited to see her there. She had a fantastic career, and I hope she was able to live her life to the fullest while she was in this world. Unlike the recent string of deaths of younger actors, I can feel a sense of peace when saying my goodbyes.
I wish her family all the best.
RIP…………
she is a great actress.
i love her performance very much.
RIP.
: ( RIP Yeo Woon Kye.
She’s a highly respected, beloved teacher in the acting community. Her presence in K-dramas will be sorely missed. There’s plenty of veteran actresses to fill in the mandatory mother/grandmother roles, but only a handful of them stick out as the best of the best. The specific type of mother/grandmother role that Yeo Woon Kye is the master of is that cynical, potty mouth grandma. Not exactly the pure evil, mother in law type, but the slightly cranky, 욕쟁이 할머니.
May she rest in peace.
She was so memorable in Dae Jang Guem. There always seemed to be a dignity to the way she played her characters – DJG, MNIKSS. She will be missed.
NO!!!
Madam Jeong is dead!!! RIP
We will miss her…
She will be missed.
She was a good actress and had the opportunity to portray a variety of roles from sageuks to comedy and various kdrama.
At least she was able to fulfull her dream to act.
i really love her
i have liked her in dae jang geum, sam soon
i am gonna miss her
Why the swastika???
That is so sad! She was such a good actress!!!
My condolences to her family.
this is utterly heartbreaking. I loved her so much in DJG and enjoyed seeing her in MNIKSS. I heard about how she had to drop out during King and I (or maybe it was some other saguk) because she was sick and I thought she was getting better. Best wishes to her family, she seemed like such a nice lady.
Such sad news, I’m watching Dae Jang Geum right now and she’s wonderful in it! May she rest in peace. She will be missed!
@41
I don’t think it’s a swastika. I thnk it may be a “swastik,” a symbol considered to be auspicious and meaning good well-being/luck—it’s pretty ubiquitous in both Hinduism and Buddhism (and in other dharmic religions).
May she rest in peace…. she’ll always have a special spot in my heart…
NO!
She was a wonderful, wonderful actress with excellent comic timing. Especially loved her in Bad Family and Mapado.
Rest in peace. You’ll be missed.
Beautiful woman. I always loved her bone structure. And she can be such a hoot, a very quirky ajumma. (I think she had a cameo as snooty society dame on That Person Is Coming, endlessly torturing Lee moon-shik as she disapproved every plate of his specialty chives pancake/pizza thingie.) Rest in peace great lady.
She was so awesome. I was just thinking, what happened to her? Why hasn’t she done any dramas lately? Then I saw the news about her having cancer. The news of her passing shocked me at first but, now that I think about it, I guess they came out with the news of her having cancer so late because she was in the last few days of her life. I’ll never forget those special parodies she filmed for one of the drama award shows a couple years ago, she was hilarious. She was one of my favorite old school celebrities. R.I.P. Yeo Woon-kye.
To my favorite, senior Korean actress…Rest in Peace.
yes, RIP
she was one of my favorite actors.