Lee Donghae

Lee Dong-hae (born October 15, 1986) mononymouly credited as Donghae, is a South Korean singer-songwriter and actor. He is best known as a member of the K-pop boy band Super Junior and its subgroup, Super Junior-M. He is also one of the first four Korean artists to appear on Chinese postage stamps.

Pre-debut

Donghae was born in Mokpo, Jeollanam on 15 October 1986. Donghae initially wanted to become an athlete, but under the influence of his father, who once desired to become a singer, Donghae decided to train himself to become a singer.

In 2001, Donghae signed a contract with SM Entertainment soon after he jointly won the Best Outward Appearance award with future band mate Sungmin on the company's third annual SM Youth Best Contest. Under SM Entertainment, Donghae was put in singing, dancing, and acting lessons, and was then recruited into a five-member boy band Smile, with future band mate Leeteuk, but the idea was soon dropped.

In 2004, Donghae, along with Leeteuk were put into another boy band and formed Super Junior with ten other trainees. The group later became known as Super Junior 05, the first generation of a rotational music group, Super Junior. In November 2005, several days before the group's debuted, Donghae made a brief appearance at SBS's Shin Dong-yup's There Is There Isn't panel.

2005-2006: Debut with Super Junior

Donghae officially debut as part of 12-member project group Super Junior 05 on 6 November 2005 on SBS's music programme Popular Songs, performing their first single, "TWINS (Knock Out)". Their debut album SuperJunior05 (Twins) was released a month later on 5 December 2005 and debuted at #3 on the monthly MIAK K-pop album charts.

In March 2006, SM Entertainment began to recruit new members for the next Super Junior generation. However, plans changed and the company declared a halt in forming future Super Junior generations. Following the addition of thirteenth member Kyuhyun, the group dropped the suffix "05" and became officially credited as Super Junior. The re-polished group's first CD single "U" was released on 7 June 2006, which was their most successful single until the release of "Sorry, Sorry" in March 2009.

Donghae made his acting debut in Super Junior's horror documentary Mystery 6, broadcasted in early 2006. The documentary surrounds Donghae and his peculiar ability to see and feel ghosts. In August 2006, Donghae played the role of a human turned cyborg in the Korean version of BoA's music video drama, "Key of Heart", his first lead appearance in a music video.