Hitomi Nozoe

Last updated

Hitomi Nozoe
Nozoe-Hitomi-1.jpg
Hitome Nozoe in the 1950s
Born11 February 1937
Died4 May 1995(1995-05-04) (aged 58)
OccupationActress
Spouse
(m. 1960;died 1987)

Hitomi Nozoe (野添ひとみ, Nozoe Hitomi, 11 February 1937 – 4 May 1995) was a Japanese actress popular in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Contents

Career

Nozoe first gained attention [1] in ingénue roles for Shochiku in films such as Kobayashi's Sincerity (1953), eventually joining Daiei following her appearance in 1955's national "New Faces" studio recruitment drive. [2] In 1960 she married frequent co-star Hiroshi Kawaguchi, son of writer and Daiei executive Matsutarō Kawaguchi, and both semi-retired from acting within a few years as Kawaguchi became a businessman and reality-TV adventurer. [3]

Known primarily for demure and innocent roles, Nozoe became a "sensation" [4] following her star-turn in Masumura's Giants and Toys (1958) as a vivacious tomboy transformed into an overnight celebrity as a confectionery spokesmodel. She is also well known in the West for her brief role as a barber's daughter in Ozu's widely acclaimed Floating Weeds (1959), which Roger Ebert named as one of the ten greatest films of all time. [5]

In 1988, the year after Kawaguchi's death at age 51 following a long illness with gastric and esophageal cancer, Nozoe published the memoir Hiroshi-san, I Did My Best (浩さん、がんばったね). She continued to write and lecture on the disease, succumbing to thyroid cancer in 1995 at age 58. [6]

Selected filmography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yasujirō Ozu</span> Japanese filmmaker

Yasujirō Ozu was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He began his career during the era of silent films, and his last films were made in colour in the early 1960s. Ozu first made a number of short comedies, before turning to more serious themes in the 1930s. The most prominent themes of Ozu's work are family and marriage, and especially the relationships between generations. His most widely beloved films include Late Spring (1949), Tokyo Story (1953), and An Autumn Afternoon (1962).

<i>Monster</i> (2003 film) 2003 film by Patty Jenkins

Monster is a 2003 American biographical crime drama film written and directed by Patty Jenkins in her feature directorial debut. The film is about serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a street prostitute who murdered seven of her male clients between 1989 and 1990 and was executed in Florida in 2002. It stars Charlize Theron as Wuornos, and Christina Ricci as her semi-fictionalized lover, Selby Wall.

<i>Equinox Flower</i> 1958 Japanese film

Equinox Flower is a 1958 color Japanese film directed by Yasujirō Ozu which is based on a novel by Ton Satomi.

<i>Floating Weeds</i> 1959 Japanese film

Floating Weeds is a 1959 Japanese drama directed by Yasujirō Ozu, starring Nakamura Ganjirō II and Machiko Kyō. It is a remake of Ozu's own black-and-white silent film A Story of Floating Weeds (1934) and considered one of the greatest films ever made.

<i>Woman in the Dunes</i> 1964 Japanese film by Hiroshi Teshigahara

Woman in the Dunes or Woman of the Dunes is a 1964 Japanese New Wave drama directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara, starring Eiji Okada as an entomologist searching for insects and Kyōko Kishida as the titular woman. It received positive critical reviews and was nominated for two Academy Awards. The screenplay for the film was adapted by Kōbō Abe from his 1962 novel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Machiko Kyō</span> Japanese actress (1924–2019)

Machiko Kyō was a Japanese actress who was active primarily in the 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chishū Ryū</span> Japanese actor

Chishū Ryū was a Japanese actor who, in a career lasting 65 years, appeared in over 160 films and about 70 television productions.

<i>Gamera: Guardian of the Universe</i> 1995 film by Shūsuke Kaneko

Gamera: Guardian of the Universe is a 1995 Japanese kaiju film directed by Shusuke Kaneko and written by Kazunori Itō. It is the ninth installment in the Gamera film series, serving as a reboot of the franchise, and is the first entry in the franchise's Heisei period. The film stars Tsuyoshi Ihara, Akira Onodera, Shinobu Nakayama, Ayako Fujitani, and Yukijirō Hotaru, with Naoki Manabe and Jun Suzuki portraying the giant monster Gamera, and Yuhmi Kaneyama playing Gyaos.

The Conference on World Affairs (CWA) is an annual conference, open to the public, featuring panel discussions among experts in international affairs and other areas, hosted since 1948 by the University of Colorado Boulder in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matsutarō Kawaguchi</span>

Matsutarō Kawaguchi was a Japanese writer of short stories, novels, dramas and screenplays. He repeatedly collaborated on the films of director Kenji Mizoguchi.

Giants and Toys is a 1958 Japanese satirical comedy film directed by Yasuzo Masumura and starring Hiroshi Kawaguchi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hiroshi Kawaguchi (actor)</span> Japanese actor

Hiroshi Kawaguchi was a Japanese film actor. He appeared in more than 50 films between 1956 and 1986. He was born in Tokyo, Japan. Kawaguchi's father, writer Matsutarō Kawaguchi, was an executive at Daiei Film, where Kawaguchi acted. In 1960 he married Daiei actress Hitomi Nozoe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ayako Wakao</span> Japanese actress (born 1933)

Ayako Wakao is a Japanese actress who was one of the country's biggest stars of the 20th century.

Mutsuko Sakura was a Japanese actress.

Yūrakuchō de Aimashō is 1958 Japanese romance-drama film in technicolor, directed by Koji Shima.

Jokyō is a 1960 Japanese drama film directed by Kōzaburō Yoshimura, Kon Ichikawa and Yasuzo Masumura. It was entered into the 10th Berlin International Film Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Masaichi Nagata</span> Japanese film producer

Masaichi Nagata was a Japanese businessman and served as president of Daiei Film. The self-proclaimed creator of Gamera, he produced the kaiju's second film Gamera vs. Barugon, with the remainder of the Showa Gamera films produced instead by his son Hidemasa Nagata.

The Daiei Stars were a Japanese professional baseball team that was founded in 1946, and played in various incarnations until 1957, when it merged with another team. Overall, the franchise only had three winning seasons, never rising higher than third place. The team was in the second division, or B-class, for seven seasons, including its last four years of existence. The Stars played in Korakuen Stadium in Bunkyo, Tokyo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kōji Mitsui</span> Japanese actor

Kōji Mitsui was a Japanese movie, TV, and stage actor. He appeared in more than 150 films from 1925 to 1975, including 29 of Kinema Junpo’s annual Top-10 winners and three of its 10 best Japanese films of all time. In 2000 the magazine named him one of the 60 most important Japanese actors of the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chikara Hashimoto</span> Japanese baseball player and actor

Chikara Hashimoto, also erroneously called Riki Hashimoto, was a Japanese professional baseball player and actor. Hashimoto played baseball for Mainichi Orions in the 1950s. He was forced to retire in 1958 following an injury, and then joined Daiei Studios. As an actor, he is known for his roles as Daimajin in the 1966 film trilogy and as Hiroshi Suzuki in the 1972 Bruce Lee film, Fist of Fury.

References

  1. "New film reveals suffering of first Japanese Christmas". newspapers.com. The Brownsville Herald. 10 April 1956. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
  2. Coates, Jennifer (2014). National crisis and the female image: expressions of trauma in Japanese film, 1945-64 (Thesis). doi:10.25501/SOAS.00020301. S2CID   143001228.
  3. "Kyojin to gangu, Movie, 1958". IMCDb.org. Internet Movie Cars Database. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
  4. "The Cruel Beauty Of Masumura Yasuzo" (PDF). jpf.org.uk. The Japan Foundation, London. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
  5. Ebert, Roger (1 April 1991). "Ten Greatest Films of All Time". Roger Ebert. Retrieved 13 February 2017.
  6. "Hitomi Nozoe". Kotobank (in Japanese). Asahi Shimbun Co., Ltd. Retrieved 16 April 2020.