Hitomi Nozoe
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 | |
Born | 11 February 1937 |
Died | 4 May 1995 58) | (aged
Occupation | Actress |
Spouse(s) |
Career
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]
References
- "New film reveals suffering of first Japanese Christmas". newspapers.com. The Brownsville Herald. 10 April 1956. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
- Coates, Jennifer (2014). "National Crisis and the Female Image: Expressions of Trauma in Japanese Film 1945-1964". SemanticScholar.org. University of London. S2CID 143001228. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
- "Kyojin to gangu, Movie, 1958". IMCDb.org. Internet Movie Cars Database. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
- "The Cruel Beauty Of Masumura Yasuzo" (PDF). jpf.org.uk. The Japan Foundation, London. Retrieved 16 April 2020.
- Ebert, Roger (1 April 1991). "Ten Greatest Films of All Time". Roger Ebert. Retrieved 13 February 2017.
- "Hitomi Nozoe". Kotobank (in Japanese). Asahi Shimbun Co., Ltd. Retrieved 16 April 2020.