Yōko Sugi

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]

Yōko Sugi
杉葉子
Sugi (left) and Setsuko Hara in Aoi sanmyaku
Born (1928-10-28) 28 October 1928
Koishikawa, Bunkyō ward, Tokyo, Japan
Died15 May 2019(2019-05-15) (aged 90)
Tokyo, Japan
OccupationActress

Biography

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]

Filmography (selected)

References
  1. "杉葉子". Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese). Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  2. "杉葉子". Kinenote (in Japanese). Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  3. "俳優の杉葉子さん死去「青い山脈」ヒロイン役 90歳 (Actress Yoko Sugi dies at 90)". The Asahi Shimbun (in Japanese). 23 May 2019. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  4. "Japanese film actress Yoko Sugi dies at 90". The Mainichi. 24 May 2019. Archived from the original on 24 May 2019. Retrieved 15 August 2019.
  5. Russell, Catherine (2008). The Cinema of Naruse Mikio: Women and Japanese Modernity. Durham and London: Duke University Press. p. 248. ISBN 978-0-8223-4290-8.
  6. "List of Japan Cultural Envoys". Agency for Cultural Affairs. Retrieved 15 August 2019.
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