Choi Bul-am, South Korea's 'national father' of Investigation Chief and Country Diaries, dies at 87
Korean actor Choi Bul-am, star of Investigation Chief and Country Diaries and host of Korean Table for 14 years, died in Seoul on October 29 aged 87.
At a glance
- Veteran South Korean actor Choi Bul-am died at about 10 p.m. on Thursday, October 29, 2026, at a hospital in Gangseo-gu, Seoul, where he was receiving treatment. He was 87.
- Known as the 'national father', he played Detective Park in MBC's long-running Investigation Chief (Susa Banjang) and Chairman Kim in Country Diaries (Jeonwon Ilgi).
- He hosted KBS1's food documentary Korean Table for 14 years before leaving the show after back surgery left him with limited mobility.
- He also served one term in the National Assembly in the 1990s and won Grand Bell awards for best supporting actor (1978) and best actor (1979).
- The wake is at Seoul Asan Medical Center; the funeral procession is set for November 2 and burial at Donghwa Gyeongmo Park in Paju.
Choi Bul-am, the South Korean actor whose warm, steady screen fathers earned him the nickname "the nation's father", died on Thursday night, October 29, 2026. He was 87. He died at about 10 p.m. at a hospital in Gangseo-gu, western Seoul, where he had been receiving inpatient treatment.
His health had been a public worry for most of the year. After surgery on his lower back, his mobility became limited and he lost a lot of weight, and in 2025 he stepped away from Korean Table, the KBS1 food documentary he had presented for 14 years. In June 2026 Culture Minister Choi Whee-young visited him in hospital, where he was doing rehabilitation. Fellow actors said this week that they had not expected that visit would be one of the last.
The detective and the village chairman
Choi's fame rests on two dramas that ran for a combined 40 years on Korean television.
In MBC's crime drama Investigation Chief (Susa Banjang), which began in 1971, he played Detective Sergeant Park Yeong-han, a calm, decent police chief who solved cases with patience rather than violence. The show became one of the longest-running dramas in Korean history, and Choi's character became a model of the honest public servant. In 2024 the Korean National Police Agency made him its first civilian honorary head of the National Office of Investigation, with the honorary rank of police superintendent general.
From 1980 to 2002 he played Chairman Kim, the head of a farming family, in Country Diaries (Jeonwon Ilgi). The drama followed the rhythms of village life as South Korea industrialised and urbanised at high speed, and for many viewers it was a weekly visit to the countryside they or their parents had left. Choi's quiet, patient father figure became the image of a Korean dad for a generation.
A career in numbers
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1940 | Born on June 15 |
| 1959 | Stage debut in Hamlet |
| 1965 | Joins the National Theater Company |
| 1971 | Begins Investigation Chief on MBC |
| 1978–79 | Grand Bell awards: best supporting actor, then best actor |
| 1980–2002 | Chairman Kim in Country Diaries |
| 1992 | Elected to the 14th National Assembly (proportional list) |
| 2011–2025 | Presents KBS1's Korean Table |
| 2024 | Honorary head of the National Office of Investigation |
| 2026 | Dies in Seoul, aged 87 |
Away from drama, Choi was also the subject of a 1990s craze of "Choi Bul-am jokes", a wave of gentle humour books built around his famous laugh, which only added to his popularity. He served one term as a lawmaker in the early 1990s before returning to acting.
On Korean Table he travelled to fishing villages, mountain towns and markets around the country, eating with local families and listening to their stories. The programme made him familiar to younger viewers who had never seen his dramas, and many of the tributes posted on Friday mentioned his habit of finishing a meal with a satisfied "paha!" laugh.
Tributes and funeral
His wake opened to the public at 10 a.m. on Friday at the funeral hall of Seoul Asan Medical Center. Former culture minister Yu In-chon and actor Na Moon-hee were among the early mourners, and singers and actors including Im Hyeong-ju, Yoon Il-sang and Kim Hyuk posted tributes online. Im said he had visited the actor in hospital a few months ago and called him "Uncle".
Choi is survived by his wife, the actor Kim Min-ja, whom he married in 1970, and by their son Dong-nyeok and daughter Dong-bi.
The funeral procession is scheduled for the morning of Monday, November 2, 2026, and he will be buried at Donghwa Gyeongmo Park in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, north of Seoul.
