Info wanted on Yoshiaki Hanayagi.
March 28, 2013 12:19 PM Subscribe
Yoshiaki Hanayagi was one of the stars of a famous movie, Mizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff, and yet there does not appear to be any further information about him online. I have found his name in Japanese, 花柳喜章, but googling that gets even fewer hits (I don't know Japanese, but if I saw what looked like a substantial webpage on him I was prepared to try Google Translate). Does anybody know anything about him, even birth/death dates?
Best answer: There's a blurb on this page about halfway down (in Japanese).
I guess that there may not be much information available because he was primarily a stage actor rather than a movie actor?
Born Jan. 22, 1923. Real name was Aoyama (surname) -- the first name could be read a couple of different ways, but I would guess Masaru. His stage name came from combining the 喜 from his father's teacher Kitamura Ryokurou 喜多村緑郎 and the 章 from his father's name Shoutarou 章太郎. He made his debut in 1933 as Botan in Kyouenroku (侠艶録). He didn't have a blazing talent, but did have a steady character and a dynamism supported by a strong passion for the theater. He also acted as a coach in the "Seinen no Kai" -- Young Man's Association?
Because of his awkwardness as an actor, his performances were very carefully calculated.
In 1978, he collapsed on the opening day of the Shinbachi [in Tokyo] theater, and died three days later at the age of 54, never having regained consciousness.
posted by Jeanne at 12:42 PM on March 28, 2013
I guess that there may not be much information available because he was primarily a stage actor rather than a movie actor?
Born Jan. 22, 1923. Real name was Aoyama (surname) -- the first name could be read a couple of different ways, but I would guess Masaru. His stage name came from combining the 喜 from his father's teacher Kitamura Ryokurou 喜多村緑郎 and the 章 from his father's name Shoutarou 章太郎. He made his debut in 1933 as Botan in Kyouenroku (侠艶録). He didn't have a blazing talent, but did have a steady character and a dynamism supported by a strong passion for the theater. He also acted as a coach in the "Seinen no Kai" -- Young Man's Association?
Because of his awkwardness as an actor, his performances were very carefully calculated.
In 1978, he collapsed on the opening day of the Shinbachi [in Tokyo] theater, and died three days later at the age of 54, never having regained consciousness.
posted by Jeanne at 12:42 PM on March 28, 2013
Response by poster: Wow, thanks a lot, Jeanne—that's terrific!
posted by languagehat at 1:14 PM on March 29, 2013
posted by languagehat at 1:14 PM on March 29, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
Japanese folks solve this problem on Google by inserting Hiragana after the search term, in order to get (mostly) Japanese results. So, I searched for
花柳喜章は
And got these results.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:35 PM on March 28, 2013