Ikebe Ryo

[Aaron Gerow]

I was sad to see that the great actor, Ikebe Ryo, passed away on  
October 8th at the age of 92.

Ikebe was somewhat the intellectual, the son of a painter who  
graduated from the Literature Faculty of Rikkyo University. He  
originally entered the industry in 1941 to become a screenwriter, but  
soon switched to acting. His career, however, was put on hold by the  
war. He served in China and New Guinea, experiencing great hardship  
(most of his unit died in battle or of starvation and disease), and  
left the army at the rank of lieutenant. He returned to Toho and came  
to fame in the 1949 hit Aoi sanmyaku (Blue Mountains) playing a high  
schooler of all things--even though he was already over 30 at the  
time. It was first his youthful but serious good looks that ensured  
his stardom in the 1950s, as he appeared especially in a lot of  
literary adaptations (e.g., Botchan and Snow Country). He successfully  
extended his career by playing yakuza in the 1960s, starting with  
Shinoda's Pale Flower and continuing with many of the great ninkyo  
pictures at Toei. A very intelligent and principled man, he headed up  
the Nihon Eiga Haiyu Kyokai and won major awards for his essays. His  
essays are well worth reading and he was a great man to listen to in  
person.

Shimura Miyoko and Yumiketa Aya put out an excellent book on him, Eiga  
haiyu Ikebe Ryo (Waizu Shuppan), that every library should add.

I should note that Ikebe was my mother-in-law's favorite actor. She  
has a huge pile of bromides at home, and it seems like half of them  
are of Ikebe. She of course has his autograph--and even a photo of her  
with Ikebe in the 1950s.

So from all of our family, I say "Gokurosama deshita."


Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Director of Undergraduate Studies, Film Studies
Yale University
53 Wall Street, Room 316
PO Box 208363
New Haven, CT 06520-8363
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6764
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu
site: www.aarongerow.com