Isuzu Yamada

Acting

Isuzu Yamada (山田五十鈴, Yamada Isuzu, 5 February 1917 – 9 July 2012) was a Japanese stage and screen actress whose career spanned seven decades. Yamada was born in Osaka as Mitsu Yamada, the daughter of Kusudu Yamada, a shinpa actor specialising in onnagata roles, and Ritsu, a geisha. Yamada debuted as a film actress in 1930 at age twelve, appearing in the Nikkatsu film Tsurugi wo koete. She soon became one of Nikkatsu's top actresses, but it was her portrayals of strong-willed modern girls in Kenji Mizoguchi's Osaka Elegy and Sisters of the Gion in 1936 at the new Daiichi Eiga studio that earned her popularity and critical acclaim. Moving to Shinkō Kinema and then to Toho, she became a star with Mikio Naruse's Tsuruhachi and Tsurujiro (1938). During the second half of the 1950s, Yamada's main attention shifted towards the stage, but she still appeared in a number of distinguished films…