Choi Bool-am (최불암), the South Korean actor whose detective chief and village patriarch kept a nation company on television for four decades, died on Thursday night in Seoul. He was 87.
He died at about 10:30 p.m. while receiving inpatient treatment at a hospital in Seoul's Gangseo District, ChildFund Korea (초록우산), the children's charity he served for 41 years, said on Friday. His health had declined after surgery for a herniated disc in 2025, and he had spent much of this year in rehabilitation.
On Friday the government posthumously awarded Choi the Geumgwan Order of Cultural Merit, its highest honor for the arts. Culture Minister Choi Hwi-young (최휘영) presented the medal to the family at the mourning hall that afternoon. The ministry described Choi as an actor who "stayed by the people's side" for 67 years across theater, television, film and documentary programming, and credited 'Chief Inspector' and 'Country Diaries' with carrying Korean television drama through its formative years, Yonhap reported. Earlier actor recipients include Baek Seong-hui (2016), Youn Yuh-jung (2021), Lee Jung-jae (2022), Lee Soon-jae and Kim Ji-mee (2025) and Ahn Sung-ki (2026).
Few actors anywhere have lived inside two characters for so long. On MBC's 'Chief Inspector' (수사반장), Choi played Park Young-han, the head of a homicide squad, for 18 years. On 'Country Diaries' (전원일기), he played Chairman Kim of Yangchon village for 22 years, in what remains Korea's longest-running television drama.
After the dramas ended he became the voice of Korean home cooking, hosting KBS 1TV's 'Korean Cuisine and Dining' (한국인의 밥상) from 2011 until March 2025 and travelling to every corner of the country to film the people behind regional dishes. His career, from his first stage role in 1959, spanned 67 years.
From 'Hamlet' in 1959 to KBS's sixth class of television actors
Choi was born Choi Young-han (최영한) on June 15, 1940, in Incheon, and lost his father at the age of eight. He discovered theater in the drama club at Jungang High School in Seoul and went on to study at Seorabeol Art College, now part of Chung-Ang University, and at Hanyang University. He made his stage debut in 1959 in a production of 'Hamlet' and joined the National Theater Company of Korea in 1965.
In 1967 he was recruited into the sixth class of actors at Seoul Central Broadcasting, the forerunner of KBS, and appeared as the general Kim Jong-seo in the historical drama 'Prince Suyang.' He moved to MBC when that network launched in 1969. His mother, Lee Myeong-suk, ran Eunseong (은성), a tavern remembered as a gathering place for struggling artists.
880 episodes of 'Chief Inspector,' and a cameo in its 2024 prequel
'Chief Inspector' premiered in March 1971 and ran until October 1989, for 880 episodes, peaking at a 70 percent audience rating. Choi's Chief Park solved his case every week and still let his face show the cost of it. The show's theme music turned up decades later in Bong Joon-ho's 'Memories of Murder' (2003), hummed by Song Kang-ho's detective.
The show followed Chief Park and a squad of Seoul police detectives, played by Kim Sang-soon, Nam Sung-hoon, Cho Kyung-hwan and No Kyung-ju, as they worked cases drawn from real crimes, with more attention to the people involved than to investigative technique.
Korea's police named him an honorary officer in 1972 for improving the force's public image, and in 2024 he became the first civilian appointed honorary head of the National Office of Investigation. That same April, MBC released the prequel 'Chief Detective 1958' (수사반장 1958), with Lee Je-hoon (이제훈) as the young Park Young-han. Choi appeared as the elderly Chief Park in the first and final episodes, 53 years after the original series began.
Twenty-two years as Chairman Kim, and a national nickname
On 'Country Diaries,' which aired from 1980 to 2002, Choi and Kim Hye-ja (김혜자) played the heads of a farming family, and his stern but tender Chairman Kim fixed the nickname "nation's father" to him for good. At one point a genre of jokes known as the "Choi Bool-am series" was popular enough to be collected in books.
The set of 'Country Diaries' was also where his charity work began. In 1981, a meeting with a child actor led him and fellow cast members of 'Country Diaries' and 'Ordinary People' to start sponsoring children through ChildFund Korea. In September 2023 he joined a reunion of the drama's cast on tvN STORY's 'The Chairman's People,' where he said his heart still raced when he thought of his wife, the actress Kim Min-ja (김민자), whom he married in 1970.
Fourteen years and 700 episodes of 'Korean Cuisine and Dining'
Choi hosted KBS's civic campaign show 'Good Country Campaign' from 1999 to 2008 before taking on 'Korean Cuisine and Dining' in 2011. Marking the show's 10th anniversary in January 2021, he told Yonhap that "food is life" and that, having been everywhere in the South, he regretted never being able to feature North Korean cooking.
He handed the program to the actor Choi Soo-jong (최수종) in March 2025. At a press event for the 700th episode, Choi Soo-jong said he would follow in his predecessor's footsteps "careful not to step on his shadow," CBS NoCut News reported.
Forty-one years as ChildFund Korea's sponsorship chair
Choi became national sponsorship chair of ChildFund Korea in 1985 and held the post until his death. At a 2015 ceremony marking his 30th year, he compared service to "getting rained on together" and said, "What people need most is people." That year, at 75, he travelled to the Turkana region of Kenya to help install water tanks for children.
He also served one term in politics, entering the National Assembly in 1992 on the proportional list of the Unification National Party, and lost a district race in Seoul's Yeongdeungpo B in 1996. His honors included the Grand Bell Award for best actor (1979), the inaugural Korean Film Critics Association best-actor award for 'The Last Witness' (1980) and the Eungwan Order of Cultural Merit, received at the Korean Popular Culture and Arts Awards in November 2014.
His funeral is a five-day ChildFund Korea funeral chaired by the charity's chairman, Hwang Young-key (황영기), with former prime ministers Lee Soo-sung and Lee Nak-yon among the funeral committee. The mourning hall at Asan Medical Center in Seoul is closed to the press at the family's request; a separate memorial space is being set up at ChildFund Korea's headquarters in Mugyo-dong, central Seoul.
The coffin will leave the hospital at 7 a.m. on Nov. 2. A devout Catholic, Choi will be honored at a funeral Mass at Yeouido Catholic Church. In keeping with his request — "when I die, be sure to stop by the foundation" — the procession will pass ChildFund Korea's headquarters before burial at Donghwa Gyeongmo Park in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. He is survived by his wife, Kim Min-ja, a son, Dong-nyeok, and a daughter, Dong-bi.
A posthumous top honor, delivered by the minister who promised him a drink
MBC aired the two-part documentary 'Paha, This Is Choi Bool-am,' named for his trademark laugh, on May 5 and 12. Still in rehabilitation, Choi could not appear on camera for the first episode, but in a trailer released earlier he told the actress Chae Si-ra, his face visibly thinner, "As a father, this is what I wanted to say." Ahead of the broadcast he said, "I want to thank the viewers who have loved me for so long. That is the heart of a clown."
When Culture Minister Choi Hwi-young (최휘영) visited his hospital room on June 11, the actor suggested they share a drink once he was discharged; the minister asked for makgeolli. After his death the minister recalled that promise and delivered the medal in person, the Seoul Shinmun reported. President Lee Jae-myung expressed his deep condolences and said he would remember Choi's concern for those left in society's shadows, while Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon called him "the face of Seoul for many years." The popera tenor Lim Hyung-joo, Choi's nephew by marriage, thanked him on social media for being "a warm father to so many people."
A prequel, a reunion, a restoration: how the work carries on
Parts of Choi's body of work have already found new audiences. 'Chief Inspector' was remade as a prequel in 2024; the 'Country Diaries' cast reunited for an entertainment show. 'The Last Witness,' released in 1980 with more than 30 minutes cut by censors, was restored to 154 minutes by the Korean Film Archive in 2003 and issued on Blu-ray in 2017 — the disc the archive's president brought to his bedside in June.
Before Korean drama travelled the world through streaming services, it lived at home in long-running series that kept the same actor in the same role for decades. Chief Park and Chairman Kim were the defining figures of that era, and they are now reaching a new generation through prequels, reunions and restorations. The public can say goodbye at the funeral Mass at Yeouido Catholic Church on Nov. 2.
Sources
- Yonhap (Korean), government confers Geumgwan Order of Cultural Merit on Choi Bool-am (Oct. 30, 2026)
- SBS News, Veteran Actor Choi Bool-am, the 'Nation's Father,' Dies at 87 (Oct. 30, 2026)
- Soompi, Veteran Actor Choi Bool Am Passes Away (Oct. 29, 2026)
- Hankook Ilbo (Korean), obituary (Oct. 30, 2026)
- Financial News (Korean), ChildFund Korea funeral arrangements (Oct. 30, 2026)
- Newsen (Korean), funeral schedule (Oct. 30, 2026)
- Seoul Shinmun (Korean), tributes (Oct. 30, 2026)
- News1 (Korean), culture minister's hospital visit (June 13, 2026)
- Wikimedia Commons, Korea 59th Memorial Day 12 (Korea.net, CC BY-SA 2.0)
- Wikimedia Commons, Choi Bool-am from acrofan (CC BY-SA 3.0)
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Time of death follows ChildFund Korea's announcement (10:30 p.m.); some outlets reported about 10 p.m. Age is given as 87 in Korean reports; Choi was 86 by international reckoning. Quotations in double quotes are as reported; Korean-language quotes are KEH translations. Korea.net and Acrofan photos are used under Creative Commons licenses; other images are broadcaster (MBC, KBS) publicity images.