Kim Hye-ja

Kim Hye-ja (; born October 25, 1941) is a South Korean actress and humanitarian. Best known to South Korean audiences as the archetypal mother figure in popular television series such as Country Diaries, What Is Love?, My Mother's Sea, and Roses and Beansprouts, Kim drew international critical acclaim in the 2009 noir thriller Mother. In 2019, she gained critical acclaim for her acting in The Light in Your Eyes. Early life Kim was born in 1941 in Gyeongseong, Gyeonggi Province in Japanese-occupied Korea (known as present-day Seoul, South Korea). Kim was studying Living Art at Ewha Womans University when she dropped out of college to pursue a career in acting. Career Kim made her acting debut in 1963, and went on to star in more than 90 television dramas, including I Sell Happiness (1978), Sand Castle (1988), Winter Mist (1989), What Is Love? (1991), My Mother's Sea (1993), You and I (1997), and Roses and Beansprouts (1999). Country Diaries, in which she appeared for 22 years, is particularly notable for making Kim into a household name and cementing her image among South Korean audiences as an iconic, unconditionally loving and self-sacrificing mother. Because of this wholesome onscreen persona, CJ CheilJedang hired her to endorse their products and appear in their advertisements for nearly 30 years, from 1975 to 2002.