Yoko Umemura

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born
Suzuki Hanako

(1903-10-21)October 21, 1903
Tokyo, Japan
DiedMarch 8, 1944(1944-03-08) (aged 40)
Tanba province, Japan
OccupationActress
Yôko Umemura
梅村蓉子
A Japanese woman wearing an ornate headpiece and and kimono, staring at the camera with a somber expression
Yôko Umemura, from a 1935 film
Born
Suzuki Hanako

(1903-10-21)October 21, 1903
Tokyo, Japan
DiedMarch 8, 1944(1944-03-08) (aged 40)
Tanba province, Japan
OccupationActress

Yôko Umemura (Japanese: 梅村蓉子; October 21, 1903 – March 8, 1944), born Suzuki Hanako, was a Japanese film actress who appeared in over a hundred films from 1922 to 1944. She is especially associated with the work of directors Yasujiro Shimazu and Kenji Mizoguchi.

Umemura was born in Nihonbashi, Tokyo. She began her stage career as a child.

Career

Umemura was a film star in Japan, compared to Norma Talmadge in the 1920s.[1][2] She made the transition to sound pictures and co-starred as a geisha in Kenji Mizoguchi's drama Sisters of the Gion (1936),[3] and in Mizoguchi's The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939).[4] Other directors she worked with included Tomotaka Tasaka, Mansaku Itami,[5] Minoru Murata, Daisuke Ito, Yutaka Abe, and Yasujiro Shimazu. In 1931 she was said to be Japan's highest salaried film actress.[6]

Yoko Umemura and director Tazuko Sakane, in the 1930s

Selected filmography

Umemura appeared in over a hundred films between 1922 and 1944.[7]

  • Minoya no musume (1924)
  • Kyôrakûsha (1924)
  • Kaichô-on (1924)
  • Daichi wa hohoemu (1925)
  • Akai yûhi ni teresarete (1925)
  • Kaminingyô no haru no sasayaki (1926)[3]
  • Ashi ni sawatta onna (1926)
  • Kujaku no hikari (1926)
  • Five Women Around Him (1927)
  • Shinpa Ôoka seidan (1928)
  • Nihonbashi (1929)
  • Aa mujô (1929)
  • Tôjin Okichi (1930)
  • Shanghai (1932)
  • Oyuki the Virgin (1935)
  • Ojô Okichi (1935)
  • Poppy (1935)
  • Osaka Elegy (1936)[8]
  • Capricious Young Man (1936)
  • Akanishi Kakita (1936)[5]
  • Sisters of the Gion (1936)[4][8]
  • Yoshida Palace (1937)
  • The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums (1939)[4]
  • Osaka Woman (1940)
  • The Life of an Actor (1941)
  • Ômura Masujirô (1942)
  • Yamasandô (1942)
  • Kaigun (1943)
  • Kikuchi sembon-yari (1944)

Personal life

References

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