Sunwoo Yong-yeo’s daily life was revealed on television.
What drew attention was not the glamorous schedule itself, but how a long-standing relationship led to the role of manager.
Her health management, memories from the beginning of her career, and meetings with colleagues together showed the texture of the time she recounted herself.
3-Line Summary
1. Sunwoo Yong-yeo welcomed a manager for the first time in 60 years
2. Her relationship with Lee So-young has lasted about 15 years
3. The remarks made on the program should be viewed as personal experience
How a 15-Year Relationship Became a “First Manager”
The 413th episode of MBC’s variety program ‘The Manager’, broadcast on August 29, captured actress Sunwoo Yong-yeo’s day. A point commonly reported in several accounts was that she began working with a manager for the first time after about 60 years of acting. Manager Lee So-young said that her main profession is television writer and that she first met Sunwoo Yong-yeo about 15 years ago through a television program.
According to Lee So-young’s explanation, she has been handling manager duties for about 1 year. The two began creating YouTube content together, which increased Sunwoo Yong-yeo’s schedule, and after it became difficult for her to handle everything alone, Lee began working as her manager. Sunwoo Yong-yeo said on the program that she had worked without a manager and had even driven herself to local shoots.
The expression “first manager” can be understood as pointing not simply to the arrival of a new employee, but to a change in the way she had carried out her work alone for a long time. Lee So-young said that Sunwoo Yong-yeo had found it difficult to prioritize her health and had sometimes signed contracts with unfavorable terms. However, this was the manager’s explanation on the program, and the specific contract details were not disclosed.
A scene explaining the relationship between the two also included memories of when Sunwoo Yong-yeo collapsed from cerebral infarction in the past. Sunwoo Yong-yeo recalled that she suddenly could not speak during a recording, and that a doctor at the scene asked her to raise both arms before advising her to go to the hospital. Lee So-young said that she acted as her guardian until the family, who were abroad at the time, arrived.
Lee So-young said that she had watched Sunwoo Yong-yeo struggle to walk and speak at the time and had thought that she needed to look after her. Sunwoo Yong-yeo also described Lee So-young as someone who had long been by her side as a guardian beyond the role of manager, expressing that she was like a daughter. The central theme shown by the program was trust built over a long period, rather than a division-of-work chart.
A Day on the Program Shaped by Stretching and Record-Keeping
On the program, Sunwoo Yong-yeo said that she had continued 10 years of rehabilitation since her cerebral infarction. The program showed her measuring her blood pressure in the morning, moving her body through stretching when she had time, and measuring and recording her blood pressure and blood sugar. Lee So-young recalled that in the past even lifting a single sheet of paper had been difficult, and said that seeing her stretch now was deeply moving.
The reason she visits a hotel breakfast buffet was also explained by Sunwoo Yong-yeo. She began going in order to eat a variety of nutrients evenly, and said that she had developed a way of taking only an appropriate amount of food. This is Sunwoo Yong-yeo’s own lifestyle as revealed on the program. Rather than treating her eating or rehabilitation methods as health-management practices applicable to everyone, it is necessary to distinguish them as changes and choices she experienced.
Her day did not consist only of scenes of physical activity. She was shown looking in the mirror and saying, “Yong-yeo, you can do it,” and expressing “I love you” to trees and food as well. The program portrayed this as a habit of speaking and an attitude of cherishing herself. At a charcoal kiln below Chiaksan Mountain, Sunwoo Yong-yeo told people she met for the first time to live according to their feelings without worrying about other people’s opinions.
The day she visited the charcoal kiln was introduced as a heat wave with temperatures of 37 degrees, and Sunwoo Yong-yeo drove herself for about 2 hours to get there. This, too, was one scene from the day captured by the program. More striking than labels such as “a hip woman in her 80s” attached to the scene were her concrete actions: going alone to places she wanted to visit and speaking with strangers.
Meeting Park Mi-sun and Memories of Her Dancer Audition
Her meeting with Park Mi-sun was also an important scene on the program. The two were said to have lived like mother and daughter for about 30 years after the sitcom ‘Soonpoong Clinic’. Park Mi-sun prepared a cake for Sunwoo Yong-yeo’s birthday, and the two wished each other good health. The words of comfort Sunwoo Yong-yeo offered came from the personal relationship the two had built.
Sunwoo Yong-yeo also recalled that she had studied ballet since her first year of middle school and taught dance in her first year of high school. She said that she gave up her dream of becoming a ballerina after watching ‘Swan Lake’ and went on to study theater and film. She explained that she later took the TBC dancer audition at the recommendation of a professor.
Sunwoo Yong-yeo said that the late Samsung chairman Lee Byung-chul judged the audition at the time and that she also underwent a camera test. Although she thought she had failed, she was notified that she had passed in 1st place, and she later made her debut as the lead in the 1966 TBC drama ‘Sanggung Nain’, she said. These were memories from the beginning of her career that Sunwoo Yong-yeo brought up on the program.
This episode did not explain Sunwoo Yong-yeo solely by her age. The time spent in rehabilitation, the change in the way she had worked alone, long-standing relationships with colleagues, and memories of her debut transitioning from dance to acting were placed together on one screen. What remains after watching the program, therefore, is less a particular label than the way of life Sunwoo Yong-yeo described herself and the relationships that have stayed by her side.
Sources
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