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She was more than South Korea's Julia Roberts or Angelina Jolie. For nearly 20 years, Choi Jin Sil has been the country's cinematic sweetheart and as close to a "national" actress as possible. But after her body was found on Oct. 2, an apparent suicide, she has become a symbol of the difficulties women face in this deeply conservative yet technologically savvy society. Incessant online gossip appears to have been largely to blame for her death. But it's also clear that public life as a single working divorced mom — still a pariah status in South Korea — was one role she was having a lot of trouble with. Dubbed the "Nation's Actress," Choi starred in some 16 movies and more than a dozen TV soap operas throughout the 1990s. But her career took a hit in 2002 when the public learned of her troubled marriage and divorce from... [read full story]
