Lee Soon-jae to serve as artists' welfare promoter

Lee Soon-jae

By Kim Ji-soo

Veteran South Korean actor Lee Soon-jae has been appointed to serve as an ambassador for the better welfare of artists.

The Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports appointed the actor to a two-year term to promote the government’s policies to help artists benefit from a better range of welfare benefits. Lee, 81, one of the nation’s most prominent actors, is currently starring as the patriarchal head of a family of three-generations living together in the SBS weekend drama “That’s the Way it is” by the writer Kim Soo-hyun.

Lee graduated from Seoul National University where he majored in philosophy and debuted in 1956 in the play, “Beyond the Horizon.”

During his 60 year acting career, he has starred in a broad range of genres ― sitcoms, reality entertainment shows (“Youth Over Flowers”) as well as epic and traditional dramas and plays.

He will promote the government’s policies for which the ministry is expected to contribute 24 billion won this year under a related law supporting artists that was passed in 2011. Even as Korean pop culture rises in is popularity, the ministry’s survey found that artists earned only 12.55 million won on average last year.