Sung Hi Lee
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Sung Hi Lee was born on April 1, 1970 in Eun-Pyung Gu (Gi-Ja Chon), a
borough of Seoul (South Korea). At the age of two Sung Hi's parents
divorced, leaving her and her younger brother to be raised by her
grandparents. Sung Hi describes herself in her childhood as "a tomboy -
climbing trees, making mud pies and playing with tadpoles and frogs."
In1978 (February 19), during her elementary school years, she and her
brother moved to Chicago (USA) to be with their father. Sung Hi was
brought up in the Korean tradition of strict discipline. She got good
grades in school, but had a hard time of adolescence, with few friends.
Her father, an alcohohlic, wasn't good at supporting his daughter
financially or emotionally, providing his daughter with seven
successive stepmothers.
These circumstances prompted the young Sung Hi to leave home on
occasion and contemplate suicide. Graduating with honours from high
school, Sung Hi abandoned a college scholarship due to a lack of money.
After her grandmother died, Sung Hi helped support her father and
brother by waitressing. From the windy city Chicago they settled
successively in Houston, Dallas and Washington D.C, and Columbus. It
was in 1988 at a Dallas nightclub where Sung Hi was discovered by her
future agent Jim Whitehead. In 1991 Sung Hi enrolled at Ohio State
University and spent three years in an exercise psychology program. One
day, she threw away her dream of being a doctor and left the university
in favour of full-time modeling in New York. However, with measurements
of 5'4", 106 pounds, 33" B -cup bust (reshaped at some time as she has
revealed), 23" waist, and 33.5" hips, she was a bit short for the New
York modeling scene and frequently took the red-eye flight to Los
Angeles jobs. At that time the first photographs of Sung Hi appeared in
Playboy's Book of Lingerie
In 1995 Sung Hi participated in the Hawaiian Tropic Beauty Contest
where she represented Pusan (Korea) because Seoul was already taken by
someone else. Although she was only 3rd runner up, after winner Krista
Frazier, her star was definitively born. Even more, the contest led to
her appearance on advertisements for, amongst others, Hawaiian Tropics, Sunkist
OrangeJuice, Chrysler Plymouth, and Hilton Hotel. In the same year she
made the move to Los Angeles. Soon after Pacific USA shot her for their
1996 Pacific USA calendar and featured her on the cover. About one year
later, East Meets West calendars offered to produce her own personal
calendar in exchange for her agreeing not to appear in any other
calendars. Since then she has appeared in advertisements, magazines,
video's and movies as we all know.
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