Haruko Sugimura

Haruko Sugimura, born as Haruko Nakano on January 6, 1909 in Hiroshima, Japan was a famous Japanese stage and film actress. She was particularly recognised for her work in films by Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse from late 1940s to early 1960s. Sugimura was adopted by affluent lumber dealers, who introduced her to the worlds of classical Japanese arts, western ballet, and opera. In her early life, she joined the Tsukiji Shōgekijō (Tsukiji Little Theatre), Tokyo, in 1927, and the Bungakuza theatre company in 1937, with which she remained affiliated until her retirement in 1996.

Sugimura began her film career in 1932 in Eizo Tanaka's Namiko, and by the end of the war had acted in about 20 films. Her critically acclaimed roles included the elderly couple's hairdresser daughter, Shige, in Ozu's Tokyo Story, Naruse's Late Chrysanthemums and Tadashi Imai's An Inlet of Muddy Water. Stage-wise, her performance as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire, Gertrude in Hamlet and Asako Kageyama in Yukio Mishima's Rokumeikan were acclaimed. In recognition of her contribution to art, she received numerous awards, including the Japan Art Academy Prize and the Asahi Prize. In 1992, she was awarded the honorary citizenship of the city of Tokyo.