Hitomi Nozoe (野添ひとみ, Nozoe Hitomi, 11 February 1937 – 4 May 1995) was a Japanese actress popular in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Hitomi Nozoe
Hitome Nozoe in the 1950s
Born11 February 1937
Died4 May 1995(1995-05-04) (aged 58)
OccupationActress
Spouse
(m. 1960; died 1987)

Career

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Nozoe first gained attention[1] in ingénue roles for Shochiku in films such as Kobayashi's Sincerity (1953), eventually joining Daiei following her appearance in 1955's national "New Faces" studio recruitment drive.[2] In 1960 she married frequent co-star Hiroshi Kawaguchi, son of writer and Daiei executive Matsutarō Kawaguchi, and both semi-retired from acting within a few years as Kawaguchi became a businessman and reality-TV adventurer.[3]

Known primarily for demure and innocent roles, Nozoe became a "sensation"[4] following her star-turn in Masumura's Giants and Toys (1958) as a vivacious tomboy transformed into an overnight celebrity as a confectionery spokesmodel. She is also well known in the West for her brief role as a barber's daughter in Ozu's widely acclaimed Floating Weeds (1959), which Roger Ebert named as one of the ten greatest films of all time.[5]

In 1988, the year after Kawaguchi's death at age 51 following a long illness with gastric and esophageal cancer, Nozoe published the memoir Hiroshi-san, I Did My Best (浩さん、がんばったね). She continued to write and lecture on the disease, succumbing to thyroid cancer in 1995 at age 58.[6]

Selected filmography

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References

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  1. ^ "New film reveals suffering of first Japanese Christmas". newspapers.com. The Brownsville Herald. 10 April 1956. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
  2. ^ Coates, Jennifer (2014). National crisis and the female image: expressions of trauma in Japanese film, 1945-64 (Thesis). doi:10.25501/SOAS.00020301. S2CID 143001228.
  3. ^ "Kyojin to gangu, Movie, 1958". IMCDb.org. Internet Movie Cars Database. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
  4. ^ "The Cruel Beauty Of Masumura Yasuzo" (PDF). jpf.org.uk. The Japan Foundation, London. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
  5. ^ Ebert, Roger (1 April 1991). "Ten Greatest Films of All Time". Roger Ebert. Retrieved 13 February 2017.
  6. ^ "Hitomi Nozoe". Kotobank (in Japanese). Asahi Shimbun Co., Ltd. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
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