Tomisaburo Wakayama
, born Masaru Okumura (奥村 勝), was a Japanese actor best known for playing Ogami Ittō, the scowling, 19th-century "ronin" warrior in the six "Lone Wolf and Cub" samurai movies. Biography. Wakayama (his stage name) was born on September 1, 1929, in Fukagawa, a district in Tokyo, Japan. His father was Minoru Okumura (奥村 実), a noted "kabuki" performer and "nagauta" singer who went by the stage name Katsutōji Kineya (), and the family as a whole were "kabuki" performers. He and his younger brother, Shintaro Katsu, followed their father in the theater. Wakayama tired of this; at the  age of 13, he began to study judo, eventually achieving the rank of 4th "dan" black belt in the art. In 1952, as part of the Azuma Kabuki troupe, Wakayama toured the United States of America for nine months. He gave up theater performance completely after his two-year term with the troupe was over. Wakayama taught judo until Toho recruited him as a new martial arts star in their "jidaigeki" movies, originally using the stage name "(credited as Jō Kenzaburō". He prepared for these movies by practicing other disciplines, including kenpō, iaidō, kendo, and bōjutsu. All this helped him  for roles (now using the stage name "Wayakama Tomisaburō") in the television series "The Mute Samurai", the 1975 television series "Shokin Kasegi" ("The Bounty Hunter"), and his most famous film role: Ogami Ittō, the Lone Wolf. Wakayama went on to star in many films, performing in a variety of roles. It has been estimated that he appeared in between 250 and 500 films. His only roles in American movies were as a baseball coach in "The Bad News Bears Go to Japan" (1978) and as a "yakuza" boss, Sugai, in Ridley Scott's "Black Rain" (1989) that delivers a memorable  English monologue that becomes a defining moment for the film, and the film's title. Wakayama died of acute heart failure on April 2, 1992, in a hospital in Kyoto. He was survived by a son, Kiichirō Wakayama () born in 1964, also an actor. Filmography. Film. Wakayama appeared in the following films, amongst others.