Hideko Takamine

Biography

Hideko Takamine (Hakodate, 1924 - Tokyo, 2010) was one of the most celebrated actresses of postwar Japanese cinema. She started as a child performer and sustained a career of around fifty years, becoming the country's leading female star during the 1950s.

Born in Hakodate on Hokkaido, she was placed in the care of an aunt in Tokyo after her mother died when she was four. Her debut in Mother (1929) for Shochiku made her a popular child actress, and many of her early films followed the template of Shirley Temple's pictures. After moving to Toho in 1937, her dramatic work in Horse brought her wider recognition as a leading lady. During the war she toured as a singer for the troops, and in 1947 she joined the breakaway union group that helped form the Shintoho studio. She became a freelance actress in 1950.

Her partnerships with Keisuke Kinoshita and, above all, Mikio Naruse defined her standing. Naruse cast her as lead in seventeen of his films between 1941 and 1966, and her sensitive yet resilient heroines spoke to the dissatisfaction felt by many women of the period. She married the writer-director Zenzo Matsuyama in 1955 but kept working. She retired in 1979, then published an autobiography and several essay collections. She died of lung cancer in 2010 at the age of 86, and her name remains tied to the working woman in Japanese film.

Key films

• Mother (1929): her breakthrough as a child performer.
• Twenty-Four Eyes (1954): Keisuke Kinoshita's antiwar drama, which made her one of the country's leading stars.
• Floating Clouds (1955): Mikio Naruse's critically admired film and one of her best-known performances.
• When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960): Naruse's portrait of a bar hostess, a key example of their work together.
• Carmen Comes Home (1951): Kinoshita's satirical comedy and Japan's first feature-length colour film.