Youn Yuh-jung

1. Early life

Youn graduated from high school in 1966. She then enrolled at Hanyang University and majored in Korean language and literature. When she passed open acting auditions held by TBC in 1966,^[11] she dropped out of college.^[12]

2. Career

After dropping out of college, Youn made her acting debut in the television drama Mister Gom in 1967.^[13] She shot to stardom in 1971 with two memorable portrayals of femmes fatales. Her first film, Kim Ki-young's Woman of Fire, was a critical and commercial hit,^[14][15] for which she won Best Actress at the Sitges Film Festival.^[16] This was followed by the MBC historical drama Jang Hui-bin, in which she plays the eponymous royal concubine. Kim was considered Korea's first style-conscious, experimental director, and Youn did not balk at playing risqué, provocative characters that explore the grotesque in the female psyche in collaborations with him, such as The Insect Woman (1972) and Be a Wicked Woman (1990).^[17] Audiences found Youn's fast way of speaking and atypical appearance refreshing and she frequently took roles in TV dramas depicting a modern woman of the new generation, notably in Kim Soo-hyun's Stepmother (1972).

At the peak of her career, Youn married singer Jo Young-nam and retired from acting to immigrate to the United States. The couple lived in St. Petersburg, Florida, for ten years until their marriage broke down due to Jo's extramarital affairs. Youn returned to Korea in 1984 and divorced Jo in 1987.

Youn struggled to resume her acting career because of the stigma attached to being a middle-aged divorcée in South Korea.^[18][19][17] Unlike many actresses of her generation, who were confined to typical maternal or ajumma roles, Youn’s versatility enabled her to push the envelope. In A Good Lawyer's Wife (2003), she drew critical acclaim for her nonchalant portrayal of a woman who neglects her husband who is dying of liver cancer and enjoys extramarital affairs. Her frank and confident persona again manifested in E J-yong's mockumentary Actresses (2009).^{[20][21][22][23]}

Youn reunited with director Im Sang-soo for the fourth time in The Taste of Money (2012), as a cruel chaebol heiress at the center of the drama that unfolds and touches upon themes of corruption, greed, and sex. Youn said, "I don't mind being called an old actress, but I do worry about how to carry on my acting career without looking like an old fool."^[24]

In 2013, she was cast as a loving mother to three loser children in Song Hae-sung's Boomerang Family.^[25] Later that year, Youn appeared in her first reality show, Sisters Over Flowers, in which she and other "sisters" travel to Croatia.^[26] She then appeared on several more reality shows, revealing a warmer, more approachable side of her personality.^[27]

Youn had two leading roles in 2015: in Kang Je-gyu's Salut d'Amour, about a romance between an elderly supermarket employee and a flower shop owner,^[28] and in Canola, about a Jeju Island diver who reunites with her long-lost granddaughter.^[29] Salut d'Amour was Youn's first collaboration with actor Park Geun-hyung since 1971.^[30]

In 2020, Youn made her Hollywood debut in the film Minari. She plays Soon-ja, a grandmother of a Korean-American family in rural Arkansas, and received over 40 American regional critics' awards, including wins from the National Board of Review^[31] and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.^[32] Youn became the first Korean actress to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress,^[33] SAG Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role,^[34] and BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.^[35] She is also the first Asian actress to win an acting award in the motion pictures categories at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the first Korean actress to win an Academy Award, and the first Asian actress to win an Academy Award since 1958, when Miyoshi Umeki won Best Supporting Actress for Sayonara.^[34]

In April 2021, Film at Lincoln Center hosted a five-film retrospective of her career.^[36] In September, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most "Influential People in the World" in 2021.^[37] In October, she received the Order of Cultural Merit.^[38]

In December 2022, Youn's contract with Hook Entertainment ended, and she decided not to renew it.^[39] In January 2023, Youn signed with Creative Artists Agency.^[5]

3. Personal life

In December 1973, at the height of her career, Youn and her fiancé, singer Jo Young-nam, immigrated to the United States, when evangelist Billy Graham invited Jo to perform at his crusades across the country. The couple married in 1974 and have two sons. They lived in St. Petersburg, Florida for 10 years, during which Youn worked at a supermarket to help raise family. She returned to Korea in 1984 and divorced Jo in 1987 due to his repeated extramarital affairs.^[40][41]

Youn has two younger sisters, one of whom is Youn Yeo-soon, a former executive at LG Group.^[42]

4. Filmography

4.1. Film

4.2. Television

4.3. Variety shows

5. Theater

6. Accolades

6.1. Awards and nominations

6.2. State honors

6.3. Listicles