Yamaji Fumiko

[Aaron Gerow]

The news services report that the film actress and philanthropist, 
Yamaji Fumiko, died on the 6th at the age of 92. Her death was kept a 
secret until after the funeral was over.

Yamaji was born in Kobe and entered Teikine in 1930 after being named 
Miss Kobe. She was one of the stars of the Shinko Kinema studio, with 
her most famous film being Mizoguchi Kenji's Aienkyo (1937). She left 
the film world during the war and began running a restaurant in the 
Shiba Koen area with her mother. The success with that and real estate 
deals helped her establish the Yamaji Fumiko Shizen Kagaku Shinko 
Zaidan in 1964 to promote research in the natural sciences. In 1976, 
she also founded the Yamaji Fumiko Bunka Zaidan (Yamaji Fumiko Culture 
Foundation) and has continued to support filmmakers and film culture in 
Japan. The Foundation gives out the Yamaji Fumiko Award every year to 
individuals or institutions who have made a significant contribution to 
cinema in Japan in that year or over their career. This year's winners 
(Kuroki Kazuo, Takabayashi Yoichi, Watanabe Ken, Koreeda Hirokazu, 
etc.) are reported in the following Japanese link:

http://www.oricon.co.jp/movie/news/041129_01.html

The Foundation also published the Shinko Kinema (1993), one of the few 
publications on that studio.

Yamaji was a rare individual and one of the most significant women in 
Japanese film history.

Aaron Gerow
KineJapan owner

Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University

For list commands, send "information kinejapan" to
listserver at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Kinema Club: http://pears.lib.ohio-state.edu/Markus/Welcome.html