KOREA ENCOUNTERS Tales from Chosun Hotel in 1970
The Chosun Hotel, published in The Korea Times July 4, 1991 / Korea Times Archive
After opening in 1914, the four-story, 52-room Chosun Hotel was witness to a great number of historical events, even hosting U.S. occupation troops in the 1940s after liberation and North Korean officers in 1950. Despite being a beautiful building, by the mid-1960s it was outclassed by its larger competitors, so in 1967 the original building was torn down and a new building with 500 rooms on 18 floors was erected.
Once it opened in March 1970, the hotel went to great efforts to attract visitors with what it called “Chosunnovations.” These included hosting fashion shows, having “Francine and Philou, chansonniers-folk singers from Paris” play at the hotel’s Ninth Gate restaurant and having a Black American vocal duo called the Big Spenders and “Four Eurasian dancers from Hong Kong TVB” called The Revolution Children perform at the Galaxy Supper Club.
The hotel was successful in these endeavors. As Cornie Choy, an employee of American Trading Company, remembered it, “back then everyone who was anyone stayed at the Chosun!”
Swedish actress Anita Ekberg takes a break on set. Courtesy of Weekly Woman
In the fall of 1970, after a meeting with a client at the hotel, Choy stepped into an empty elevator when he heard a “'ping!' one floor down and Anita Ekberg stepped in alone wearing a long, black mink coat, a long white dress and heels … it was just the two of us in the elevator to the lobby, where I held the ‘Open’ button and she smiled and nodded to me as she got out. Of course, she was older than she was in her films, but she was still stunningly beautiful. Till this day, though the lady is long gone, I can still remember her faint perfume.”
Ekberg, a Swedish actress best known for her appearance in the Federico Fellini film “La Dolce Vita,” was in Seoul to make a film initially titled “Seoul Affair,” but eventually known in Korean as “Katherine’s Escape" and in English as “Northeast of Seoul” (to which Korea Times columnist James Wade quipped, “How far northeast?”). Directed by David Rich, it also starred John Ireland and Victor Buono, and was supposed to feature music by Korea Times contributor Alan Heyman, but the soundtrack he wrote for it was never used.
As Heyman remembered it, Ekberg upset the staff at the Chosun Hotel when smoke tipped them off to the fact that she was using a hotplate in her room to cook, which was forbidden. He also said the film’s storyline was “as close to ‘The Maltese Falcon’ as you can get without a suit for plagiarism from the Hammett estate.”
The film wasn’t released until 1974, and in his review, James Wade criticized the performances, story and sound quality, but conceded, “If your idea of excitement is watching the director of the local Fulbright Commission pull a gun on somebody, then this movie is for you.”
Victor Buono, Anita Ekberg and John Ireland on set / Courtesy of Weekly Woman
In addition to Ekberg, the fall of 1970 also saw other international guests stay for an extended period at the Chosun Hotel, including Joe and Carole Policy.
Their stay grew out of a problem faced by the Yongsan Garrison-based Trans-Asia Engineering Associates (TAE) when it was tasked with designing what would become Seoul’s most lavish discotheque, named Tomorrow, in the basement of the Chosun Hotel.
As former TAE employee Nam Sang-so remembered it, when TAE got the contract in the fall of 1970, its engineers were at a loss because they had no idea what a discotheque should look like. This problem was solved when Mr. Nam heard Armed Forces Korea Network (AFKN) DJs who “talked like avant-garde artists” at a commissary diner and he decided to visit AFKN to ask for their help.
That was where he met Joe Policy, a 26-year-old Maryland University graduate with years of experience working for local TV stations, which earned him a Regional Emmy in 1968. Policy came to Korea in August 1970 and was stationed on Yongsan Garrison, where he worked at AFKN. After a meeting in October with Horst G. Frank, the general manager of the Chosun, he was hired to supervise the design of things such as the DJ booth and colored lighting, while TAE focused on soundproofing, heating and ventilation, sprinklers and electricity.
Joe Policy poses in front of AFKN in 1970 or 1971. Courtesy of Carole Policy
Being on active duty, however, Policy could not accept financial compensation, so instead it was arranged that he would have use of a room in the hotel. This gave him the opportunity to bring his wife, Carole, to Seoul. As she remembered it, “I arrived in October or early November and moved right into the hotel room” on the 19th floor.
Between visits to sites like Changdeok Palace, she watched the construction of the discotheque proceed.
A full-page ad in The Korea Times taken out by the Chosun Hotel on Jan. 1, 1971, described the lighting that Joe Policy and his friends worked on: “Strobe lights create a flickering mood across the copper dance floor. Color organs pulse with the music, changing color with each note. Oil projectors spill colorful patterns along the walls and ceiling.”
The dancefloor and stage of the Tomorrow discotheque in the Chosun Hotel / Courtesy of Carole Policy
While the ad announced that Tomorrow would open to the public on Jan. 2, 1971, its first night of operation was actually New Year’s Eve, which Carole Policy remembers as “a kind of pre-opening because I don't remember it being packed.”
In addition to Filipino bands The Wild Five and The House Rockers, who played regularly at Tomorrow after it opened, she remembered that “Franco Romano's band of musicians and singers were frequent entertainers in the night club [on the] top floor.” (Romano would go on to record a disco album with the Korean singer Nami in 1979.)
A seating area in the Tomorrow discotheque in the Chosun Hotel / Courtesy of Carole Policy
Carole Policy ultimately left Korea in the early summer of 1971, and her husband followed her that September. He continued work in television and, as his daughter, Amy Persenaire, remembered, had a long career at the National Enquirer where he was able to arrange concert tickets, meetings with celebrities and entry into exclusive clubs for her.
Working on the Tomorrow discotheque, she remembers, “was one of his favorite stories, but not even the weirdest or most random, surprisingly.” Joe Policy sadly passed away in July 2022, but “when the priest at his service mentioned that he opened a disco in downtown Korea with a gold floor while serving in the Army, the general reaction was ‘of course he did.’”
Matt VanVolkenburg has a master's degree in Korean studies from the University of Washington. He is the blogger behind populargusts.blogspot.kr, and co-author of "Called by Another Name: A Memoir of the Gwangju Uprising."