Biographies: Sessue Hayakawa - Actor

Biographies

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A Japanese actor, born in Nanaiwa, Japan, to a mother who belonged to an aristocratic family of the samurai class and a father who held the position of regional governor in Japan. He sought to follow in his father's footsteps and become an officer in the Japanese Navy before he was rejected due to hearing problems, so he turned to the theater. He traveled to Europe and studied theater classics, then returned to Japan and joined a touring Japanese theater company. He then went on a tour of the United States in 1913, during which film producer Thomas Ince signed a contract with him. He then appeared in several short films and achieved rapid success, as he became one of the first Asian artists in American cinema. The dialect was not an obstacle to him, as the films were silent at that time. He established his own production company, which produced films of an Asian nature with the participation of his actress wife Tsuru Aoki, but the box office quickly let him down, so he left for Japan, then to France and England. He returned to Hollywood to present Daughter of the Dragon (1931) with the introduction of sound into movies. His tone caused him to receive negative reviews, after which he returned to Japan again, and from there to France and then Hollywood for a third time, only to receive another blow with the outbreak of World War II. He was nominated for an Oscar for The Bridge on the River Kwai. He continued to act regularly until he returned to Japan and gave acting lessons there. Hayakawa won the National Board of Film Review Award in New York City in 1957 and he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

• 31 December 2023
• Toqa Hesham