Japanese female actors to remember

Eiko Miyoshi was born on 8 April 1894 in Tokyo, Japan. She was an actress, known for The Hidden Fortress (1958), No Regrets for Our Youth (1946) and Ikiru (1952). She died on 28 July 1963.

Kiyoko Tsuji was born on 18 March 1908 in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan. She was an actress, known for House (1977), Chushingura (1962) and The Sinners of Hell (1960). She was married to Kyôtarô Namiki. She died in 1993 in Japan.

Haruko Sugimura was born on 6 January 1909 in Hiroshima, Japan. She was an actress, known for Tokyo Story (1953), A Last Note (1995) and Repast (1951). She died on 4 April 1997 in Tokyo, Japan.

Yaeko Izumo was born on 8 September 1909 in Aomori, Japan. She is an actress, known for Aizen katsura (1938), Hana-kago no uta (1937) and Aizen katsura - Kanketsu-hen (1939).

Tanaka Kinuyo was a highly regarded and prolific actress best known for her films with director Mizoguchi Kenji. She was immersed in the world of film having received her start in the world of entertainment at age fourteen, being a filmmaker herself, being the cousin of director Kobayashi Masaki and, very much like Hara Setsuko and Ozu Yasujiro, being anecdotally romantically linked with the aforementioned Mizoguchi. The director would later recommend against her being hired as a director, which caused a rift between the two. She received her first known credit in Shochiku's Genroku Onna in 1924. She stayed to become the studio's biggest actress, and a paradigm of beauty, until approximately 1949 when she travelled to the United States Of America as an ambassador of Japanese culture. Upon her return from the US the Japanese detected a change of attitude in her, as well as noting a new short hairdo, which momentarily lead to some criticism. She had married director Shimizu Hiroshi, with whom she had worked, in 1929. Sources claim this was a mere cohabitation however. The marriage lasted a matter of months, but the two worked together beyond their romantic union. She married another one of her directors Gosho Heinosuke, but not before also starring in several Ozu films. It looked like films like Aizen Katsu and Naniwa Onna would be the height of her fame with all their popularity, but post-war films like Life Of Oharu, Sansho The Bailiff and Ugetsu were even bigger classics and immortalized the actress. Another of her many other noteworthy performances was in The Ballad Of Narayama based on a tradition and folklore of Japan. As if to complete her tour de force of Japanese cinema she directed several films and even worked with Kurosawa Akira in Red Beard. She died of a brain tumor in 1977.

Tanie Kitabayashi was born on 21 May 1911 in Tokyo, Japan. She was an actress, known for Dai yûkai (1991), Amida-dô dayori (2002) and Kiku to Isamu (1959). She died on 27 April 2010 in Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan.

Miyake kuniko was born in the Iwatsuki ward of Saitama City, Saitama just north of Tokyo on 17.09.1916 as Miura Yasu and died on 04.11.1992 in Tokyo. In between she was in dozens of films most notably multiple collaborations with director Ozu Yasujiro in classics of cinema like Tokyo Story and Early Summer. She joined Shochiku studio and appeared in Yume No Sasayaki ('Sasayaki's Dream) in 1934. She retired from the business upon marriage in 1942, but returned in 1948 after World War II and played her most notable roles. Beginning the 1960s she was mostly active in television serials. She died of heart failure at age 76.

Yûko Mochizuki was born on 28 January 1917 in Kanagawa, Japan. She was an actress and director, known for A Japanese Tragedy (1953), Late Chrysanthemums (1954) and Rice (1957). She died on 1 December 1977 in Japan.

Michiyo Kogure was born on 31 January 1918 in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi, Japan. She was an actress, known for Aoi sanmyaku (1949), Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955) and Tsukigata Hanpeita: Hana no maki; Arashi no maki (1956). She died on 13 June 1990.

Setsuko Hara became one of Japan's best-loved stars over her 30-year film career. Her signature character type, variations on a daughter devoted to her parents and home, inspired the nickname that stayed with her until retirement: the Eternal Virgin. To some extent, reality mirrored her roles in these films. In a society that considers marriage and parenting almost obligatory, she remained single and childless, something of a controversy in Japan in the 1950s. Fortunately she was popular enough to avoid criticism, but the 1950s were still a hard decade. She was plagued by ill health, missing out on several top roles as a result, and she witnessed the death of her camera-man brother in a freak train accident on set.

In 1963, shortly after the death of her mentor, director Yasujirô Ozu, she suddenly walked away from the film industry. At age 43, and at the height of her popularity, she bluntly refused to perform again, angering her fans, the industry, and the press. She implied acting had never been a pleasure and that she had only pursued a career in order to provide for her large family; this explanation is seen as the cause of her popularity backlash. She moved to a small house in picturesque Kamakura where she remained, living alone (though apparently sociable with friends), and refusing all roles offered.

She is undoubtedly known mostly for her work with Yasujiro Ozu, making six films with the great director, including the so-called Noriko trilogy, of which Tokyo Story (1953) is probably the best-known. She also worked with Akira Kurosawa, Mikio Naruse, Hiroshi Inagaki, and many others.

Awashima Chikage was born as Nakagawa Keiko to store owner parents in Tokyo, Japan on 24.02.1924. Awashima began her entertainment career as part of the semi famous Takarazuka Revue of Kansai where she trained and performed beginning age fifteen. Her stage name was taken from a Japanese poem. She began her screen career in 1950 and went on to star in the comedy film adaptations of the Japanese novels called Ekimae ('station front'). Both as part of this series and separately she worked with director Shiro Toyoda more than a dozen times. Early accolade came her way when her performance for director Minoru Shibuya, Tenya Wanya (1950), won her the critics' award for the Best Actress of the year. At this point the audiences and critics thought of her as one of the nation's more famous beauties. By far her most impactful appearance, however, were the three films of Ozu Yasujiro she starred in. These came about as part of her contact with the Shochiku studio. She was furthermore in the masterpiece film The Human Condition I: No Greater Love. She remained consistently active until the late '60s, by which time she was working for Toho Studio, after which she would work irregularly in front of the camera and also on stage. She was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 1988 and Order Of The Precious Crown, 4th Class, Wisteria in 1995. The Purple Ribbon is awarded for academic or artistic accomplishment while Order Of The Precious Crown is typically reserved for females in Japan. Awashima was an honourary Vice President of Japan's actors' guild until 2007 for her advocacy of actors and actresses' rights. She was 87 when she died on 16.02.2012 after contracting pancreatic cancer. Many actors and actresses attended her funeral. There was a report that she died leaving debts behind, but it was also claimed that the debts were piled on by others and not her personally. Chikage never married. She is buried at Gokokuji, a temple in Tokyo.

Along with Hara Setsuko and Tanaka Kinuyo, Takamine Hideko remains one of Japan's most admired and prolific film actresses. Born as Hirayama Hideko in Hakodate, Hokkaido in northern Japan in 1924, she became a child actress for Shochiku Studio at age five appearing in the film Haha. She would go on to work with directors like Kinoshita, Ozu, and arguably most notably Naruse Mikio. Mid-career she had switched to P.C.L. Film Studio (later Toho Studios) and then become independent yet she would work for notable directors nonetheless. By the time she married director Matsuyama Zenzo in 1955 she had acquired a reputation as depicting feminist roles where women seek their independence or are oppressed. She died in 2010 of lung cancer, but had recorded songs and written biographies before her death.

Nobuko Otowa was born on 1 October 1924 in Tottori, Japan. She was an actress, known for The Strange Tale of Oyuki (1992), Onibaba (1964) and Epitome (1953). She was married to Kaneto Shindô. She died on 22 December 1994.

A character actress who never quite got her due, despite roles in numerous high-profile movies from the 1940s onward. Although a vigorous participant in Toho's labor disputes of that early period, like so many others she never really left, in part because she had married studio producer Tomoyuki Tanaka. An excellent performer with a lively and genuine presence, Nakakita was never fated for great stardom, although Akira Kurosawa early on spotted her potential as a realistic romantic lead, and cast her as the optimistic girlfriend in One Wonderful Sunday (1947). A superlative later performance appeared in Sekai daisensô (1961), in which she essayed the role of a single mother vainly struggling across Tokyo to be reunited with her young daughter before war breaks out. For the most part however, she appeared to come to regard acting as more of a hobby than a profession, turning up in bit roles for Toho movies of all kinds, usually in the kind of maternal roles for which she was extremely suited, many of them produced by her husband, although it would be mistaken to assume that someone with her obvious talent had to rely on Tanaka just to get a job. By the end of the 1960s she appears to have retired altogether, and concentrated on her family.

Yôko Katsuragi was born on 6 April 1930 in Tokyo, Japan. She was an actress, known for Late Spring (1949), Scandal (1950) and Black River (1957). She was married to Toshirô Mayuzumi. She died in March 2007 in Japan.

Kyôko Kishida was born on 29 April 1930 in Suginami, Tokyo, Japan. She was an actress and writer, known for Woman in the Dunes (1964), An Autumn Afternoon (1962) and Ninja, a Band of Assassins (1962). She was married to Noboru Nakaya. She died on 17 December 2006 in Tokyo, Japan.

Kaoru Yachigusa was born on 6 January 1931 in Osaka, Japan. She was an actress, known for Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island (1956), Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954) and With Beauty and Sorrow (1965). She was married to Senkichi Taniguchi. She died on 24 October 2019 in Tokyo, Japan.

Yoshiko Kuga was born on 21 January 1931 in Tokyo, Japan. She was an actress, known for Taiyô to bara (1956), Farewell to Dream (1956) and Somewhere Under the Broad Sky (1954). She was married to Akihiko Hirata. She died on 9 June 2024 in Japan.

Born in Namegata, Ibaraki Prefecture in 1931, Kagawa Kyoko (also Makino Kyoko) has endured through the golden age of Japanese cinema, into the end of the century and onto the new to act in many of the more important films from her native country. Growing up she had aspired to learn English and then to become a ballerina after watching Swan Lake, but fate and a beauty contest sponsored by The Tokyo Shimbun newspaper intervened and cast her into the role of an actress. She began her career at the defunct Shintoho Studio in 1949. Films like Tokyo Story, Sansho The Bailiff and High And Low directed respectively by Ozu, Yasujiro, Mizoguchi, Kenji and Kurosawa, Akira have captured and immortalized her. She married and moved to New York City, USA with her husband, a reporter, and child for three years in 1965. She went through a couple of dry spells mid-career when roles had vanished, one of which lasted three years and was broken when a call came from Kurosawa to work on Maadadayo. It was the first time the actress and director worked together in 28 years. Kagawa won a Japanese Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the film. She was awarded a Japanese Medal With Purple Ribbon in 1998 for her contribution to Japanese life and arts. She was the subject of a film perspective at the Tokyo International Film Festival and Japan's National Film Centre in 2011. She also received an award in the same year from The International Federation Of Film Archives for her movie preservation effort. She was the first Japanese actor to receive this prize. She has done commercial work in the '70s and '80s (House Foods) and more recently for Lawson stores and Kirin Brewery. Overall she has a dozen awards, a couple of books and even a music single to her credit.

Ineko Arima was born on 3 April 1932 in Osaka, Japan. She is an actress, known for Tokyo Twilight (1957), Dai Chûshingura (1957) and Black River (1957). She was previously married to Kinnosuke Nakamura.

Keiko Kishi was born on 11 August 1932 in Yokohama, Japan. She is an actress, known for The Twilight Samurai (2002), Kah-chan (2001) and Brother (1960). She was previously married to Yves Ciampi.

Mariko Okada was born on 11 January 1933 in Tokyo, Japan. She is an actress and producer, known for Akitsu Springs (1962), Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island (1956) and Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954). She was previously married to Yoshishige Yoshida.

Ayako Wakao was born on 8 November 1933 in Tokyo, Japan. She is an actress, known for Seisaku's Wife (1965), Women Are Born Twice (1961) and A Wife Confesses (1961).

Akemi Negishi might never have become an actress but for Josef von Sternberg. The legendary director was in Japan looking for a woman to play the seductress who leads a bunch of soldiers astray in his upcoming (and as it turned out, last) movie _Anatahan (1954)_. But Sternberg spotted Negishi one night, dancing on the cabaret stage, and chose her at once. This was the first in a long string of exotic roles, most unusual for the average Japanese actress, but which became her trademark, in films as various as _Kingukongu tai Gojira (1962)_ and Dodes'ka-den (1970). She was a favorite actress of both Akira Kurosawa and Ishirô Honda, both directors seeing beyond the kind of role in which she was usually typecast, and thereby encouraging her to some of the best work any Japanese actress did in the 1950s and 1960s. Her most memorable roles are probably for Kurosawa, in The Lower Depths (1957) and Dodes'ka-den (1970); but she is probably best known outside Japan for playing the woman who leads the dance of tribute to Kong in _Kingukongu tai Gojira (1962)_. Negishi was an unusual presence in Japanese film at that time, since her presence was so aggressively, obviously sensual. This militated against her becoming a major star in the conservative Japanese atmosphere of the time, but she was fortunate to be able to do excellent character work throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Following her arresting cameo as the beautiful lone housewife in Dodes'ka-den (1970), it appears that Negishi retired.

Yôko Tsukasa was born on 20 August 1934 in Sakai-minato, Japan. She is an actress, known for The Kii River (1966), Yojimbo (1961) and Moment of Terror (1966). She has been married to Hideyuki Aizawa since 1969.