Yōko Sugi | |
---|---|
杉葉子 | |
![]() Sugi (left) and
Setsuko Hara in
Aoi sanmyaku | |
Born |
Koishikawa,
Bunkyō ward, Tokyo, Japan | 28 October 1928
Died | 15 May 2019 Tokyo, Japan | (aged 90)
Occupation | Actress |
Yōko Sugi (杉葉子, Sugi Yōko, 8 October 1928 – 15 May 2019) was a Japanese actress mainly active in the 1950s, who appeared in films of Mikio Naruse, Kinuyo Tanaka and Tadashi Imai. [1] [2]
Sugi was born on 28 October 1928 in what is now Bunkyō ward, Tokyo, Japan. In 1945 she graduated from a Japanese high school in Shanghai. [3]
After returning to Japan in 1947, Sugi auditioned at Toho studio's "New Face" competition and received a contract. [4] She gave her debut in Tadashi Imai's 1949 Aoi sanmyaku, and performed in several other coming of age films. [4] She repeatedly appeared in films of Mikio Naruse such as Repast, Husband and Wife (Sugi's only starring role in a Naruse film, replacing Setsuko Hara) [5] and Sound of the Mountain, and in Kinuyo Tanaka's The Eternal Breasts and The Moon Has Risen. [1]
In 1962, Sugi married an American, retired from the entertainment industry, and moved to the United States, where she worked at the New Otani Hotel in Los Angeles. [4] Occasionally returning to Japan, she appeared in films like Shirō Toyoda's The Twilight Years. She served as a Japanese Cultural Envoy to the United States for the Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2005. [6]
Sugi moved back to Japan in 2017. She died on 15 May 2019 of colon cancer in Tokyo. [3] [4]