Mito Mitsuko

**Mito Mitsuko** (Japanese. 水戸光子 *Mochizuki Yuko*?), real name: **Mitsuko Sekiba** ( Jap. 水戸光子?); March 23, 1919 - April 5, 1981 - Japanese actress. Star of the "golden age of Japanese cinema" (was at the peak of success from the late 1930s to early 1960s). During her career, she took part in more than 200 films  , starred in such directors as Hiroshi Shimizu , Yasujiro Ozu , Kenji Mizoguchi , Keisuke Kinoshita and others.

## Biography

### Early years

Mitsuko was born into the family of a civil engineer  in the village of Nitsuru , Onuma County (now this village, like the county as a whole, is part of the sprawling city of Aizumisato ), which is located in Fukushima Prefecture . At the age of 12, Mitsuko went to study at Okazaki Women's College in Aichi Prefecture in 1930  . Three years later, she dropped out of school due to family circumstances, to work as a waitress at the hotel "Mampey" in Nagoya , and then went to work in the hotel under the same management and the name in Atami  . In 1934at sixteen maid Mitsuko noticed one of the hotel guests, director of the film company " Shochiku " Isaburo Inoue, who invited her to the studio of the sample  . Since November of the same year, Mitsuko becomes a full-time actress in the Kamata studio of the Shochiku film company  .

### Film career

She made her debut on the screen in a small role in the film directed by Hiroshi Shimizu "Barchuk in College 4", which was released on New Year's Eve 1934. In January 1936, the studio moved from the pavilions in Kamata to a newly built studio at Ofuna Station . Mitsuko differ modesty, she was not of those who are on the path to success pushes away all elbows, and therefore will not soon began to receive major role, it is content with secondary nonetheless participate in such, for example, masterpieces, as " Mr. Thanks " ( 1936 ) the same Shimizu brought the young actress to the list of promising rising stars of the film industry  .

Success came to Mitsuko Mito in 1939 , when she starred in Warm Tide directed by Kozaburo Yoshimura , very successfully creating the likable character of Gin Ishiwatari. Before filming began, the director held screen tests and rehearsals with the young actress, after which he asked Mitsuko: "Can you handle it?" To which she replied: “I cannot be sure”  . But the result was impressive and what is called "a star is born". In February 1940the author at Nippon Eiga tried to figure out what made Mito's portrayal of Gin in Warm Tide so compelling. The author praised Mito's acting, praising her for playing the ideal Japanese woman and noting that the role led the actress to the status of a big star: “Her personality (Mitsuko Mito) is exactly the type of Gin Ishiwatari. This is a stroke of luck for an actress and a great stroke of luck for Japanese cinema. While it may seem that a lot of actresses could also play Gin, but now can not think of any one who would be able to play the basic spirit of Gin, but her "  .

During the war years, when Mito's popularity was on the rise, the actress was filmed quite actively, despite the "period of small films", when every year fewer films were released on the screen. Among the directors who invited her in these years to their projects are Minoru Shibuya (Ten Days of Life and The Country of Cherry Trees, both 1941 ), Yasujiro Ozu ( There Was a Father , 1942 ), Kozaburo Yoshimura (A Spy Still not killed "and" South Wind ", both - 1942), who was just beginning then Keisuke Kinoshita (" Port in flowers ", another name -" Harbor in Blossom ", 1943 ," Street of Glee ", 1944 ), etc.

In October 1944, Mito met the actor Shin Morikawa, whom she soon married. After marriage, Mito left the film company in 1945 , gave birth to a daughter, but the marriage broke up in April 1946 and in October of the same year the actress returned to the Ofuna studio  . At the same time, Mitsuko Mito did not re-enter into a long-term contract with the film company, becoming a freelance actress (free from any obligations to "Shochiku Ofuna") and since 1947 she has been filming at the studio sites of various film companies. Most of all in subsequent years, Mitsuko Mito worked in the pavilions of the film company "Dayi" ... But before leaving for a long time the company "Shochiku" (in the films of which she will subsequently appear from time to time since 1956 ), the actress flashed in a role, unique for her experience, in Keisuke Kinoshita's film " Woman " ( 1948 ), in which all there are only two characters on the screen - a man and a woman (her partner here was the famous actor Eitaro Ozawa ).

Leaving "Shochiku" gave Mitsuko Mito the opportunity to expand the range of her roles, now she was not afraid to appear on the screen in the images of unsightly heroines, women with a difficult fate. One of the best roles of the 1940s is her work in the film "The Flame of My Love " ( 1949 ) by the outstanding director and master of the female film portrait Kenji Mizoguchi . The role of Chiyo was played by an actress, another victim-heroine whom the director loved so much (in one of the scenes of this film, advocating the release of a woman, Mitsuko Mito was involved in a rather frank rape scene at that time)  . In the same Mizoguchi, the actress starred again, in his loudest masterpiece " Tales of the Misty Moon after the Rain”( 1953 ), and here her heroine Ohama, the wife of the peasant Tobei, a woman humiliated and insulted, and, notably, again subjected to violence (this time by a group)  .

By the mid -1950s, Mitsuko Mito is already in her fourth decade, she realizes that she cannot rely entirely on the main roles that she could afford earlier, especially since it was at this time that a new generation of post-war actresses appeared in Japanese cinema. From about this period in her career there will be frequent secondary roles, and yet we must pay tribute to Mitsuko Mito, she did not agree to every job, so for the most part these were not passable, but rather interesting characters played by the actress brightly and interestingly  . These were, for example, two of its work in 1954 : thieving maid Orica film Heynoske Goso " Hotel in Osaka"And unrequitedly in love with a cruel man, usurer Mitsue from the film" The Golden Demon "(directed by Koji Shima ).

In the popular series of three films directed by Hiroshi Inagaki about the brave warrior Miyamoto Musashi " Samurai: The Way of the Warrior " (1954), " Samurai 2: Duel at the Temple " ( 1955 ) and " Samurai 3: Duel on the Island " ( 1956 ) played the role of Oko , mother of Akemi, lover of the protagonist.

Among other notable roles of the actress  : the mistress of the baseball player Ryouko in Masaki Kobayashi's film I Buy You (1956), Natsuno in the social drama directed by Satsuo Yamamoto 's The Song of the Cart ( 1959 ), Izumi in the biographical drama The Wandering Princess , directed by which was performed by the famous actress Kinuyo Tanaka (played in a duet with Mitsuko Mito the main characters of the films Mizoguchi's "The Flame of My Love" and "Tales of the Misty Moon After the Rain"), Harumi's mother-in-law in the women's drama directed by Susumu Hani " Life Full " ( 1962 ).

After participating in the film epic Satsuo Yamamoto " War and People " (consisting of three films, 1970 - 1973 ) Mitsuko Mito left the film industry and concentrated on participating in television projects  .

In March 1974, Army Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, who had been diving for thirty years in the Lubang Islands in the Philippines , nearly died but was rescued. Upon returning home, at a press conference he was asked: "What woman do you like?" And he replied, "Someone like Mitsuko Mito." Her name has become a topic in the media, and she brought a bouquet of Lieutenant Onoda  .

Mitsuko Mito died in 1981 at the age of 62 from liver cancer  .