Fusako Fujima
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21 August 1882
Fusako Fujima | |
|---|---|
藤間 房子 | |
 Fujima in 1947 | |
| Born | Ginko Yanoshima 21 August 1882 Tokyo, Japan |
| Died | 9 January 1954 (age 71) |
| Occupation(s) | Actress, dancer, singer |
Fusako Fujima (Japanese: 藤間 房子; 21 August 1882 – 9 January 1954), born Ginko Yanoshima, was a Japanese actress, dancer, and singer. She was with the Imperial Theatre in the 1910s, and appeared in Japanese films in the 1930s and 1940s, including Mikio Naruse's Sincerity (1939) and Akira Kurosawa's No Regrets for Our Youth (1946).
Ginko Yanoshima was born in Tokyo, the daughter of a paper merchant.[1] She studied art, music, and dance, and trained for the theatre at the school of Sada Yakko.[2] She began her stage career in the Imperial Theatre.[3][4]
Stage career
Fujima's early career was on the stage. She played Mistress Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor in Tokyo in 1912.[5] "The fearlessness and scorn of the samurai mother, played by Miss Fusako Fujima, was a revelation of what the shy, sophisticated Japanese women can do in simulating passion," wrote an American reviewer in 1914, in Overland Monthly.[6] She was described as "the best Japanese dancer among the actresses", in a 1915 report in The Far East, about the Imperial Theatre's "Toy Ballet".[7] She was noted for her "comical" skills, in a 1918 article about fellow actress Ritsuko Mori,[8] and she was described as a singer in a 1926 newspaper photo with Mori and Irish tenor John McCormack.[9]