[KineJapan] Yachigusa Kaoru

[Gerow Aaron]

I was very sad to see the news of the passing of Yachigusa Kaoru, one of Japan's great actresses. She was 88. She was a Takurazuka star before debuting in film in 1951, and came to fame in such films as the Samurai trilogy, Snow Country, etc. She is well remembered for her work on television, especially some of the masterpieces of Japanese TV drama such as Yamada Taichi's Kishibe no album and Mukoda Kuniko's Ashura no gotoku (which I show in my TV class). She was active until the end, acting in TV dramas even this year. 

My one contact with her was when I briefly did some work when I was a grad student for two American documentary filmmakers who wanted to make a film on Kurosawa Akira. They wanted me to contact the director Taniguchi Senkichi (a friend of Kurosawa’s), whom Yachigusa married in 1957, and do so in the few days they were in Japan. In those days, Eiga Nenkan still listed home phone numbers in their listing of film personnel. So I called his number. Yachigusa answered the phone (you could tell from her unique voice), and was clearly a bit flustered at having to deal with foreigner with mediocre Japanese. Forgive me! And rest in peace.

https://www.cinemacafe.net/article/2019/10/28/64176.html <https://www.cinemacafe.net/article/2019/10/28/64176.html>

Aaron Gerow
Professor
Film and Media Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Chair, East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University
143 Elm Street, Room 210
PO Box 208324
New Haven, CT 06520-8324
USA
Phone: 1-203-432-7082
Fax: 1-203-432-6729
e-mail: aaron.gerow at yale.edu <mailto:aaron.gerow at yale.edu>
website: www.aarongerow.com


















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