Addendum The Post-Li Xianglan Years

Quite unexpectedly, I was bedridden for a long time during the

summer of 1986. Perhaps fatigue accumulating over the years had invited a virus

attack, triggering an onset of shingles. After a two-and-a-half-month hospitalization and a nine-month recuperation at home, I felt perfectly fine. That said, it was

the first time I had been so immobilized for such a long period.

As the pain abated a little, I began to revise the manuscript, which had more

or less been completed up to the time of Japan’s defeat in World War II. Meanwhile, I reminisced about my experiences in my post–Li Xianglan phase.

Since I had made the decision to write my autobiography the year before last,

I tried conscientiously to revive my memories as truthfully as I could, taking advantage of whatever time was available between work. In practice, however, my

everyday responsibilities kept me increasingly preoccupied, creating significant

delays in my project. Cutting me off from my everyday activities in a way that was

beyond my control, my hospitalization might seem to have been a gift from heaven.

On the other hand, it was also a symbolic event in that resurrecting the past brought

with it considerable anguish. Between periods of excruciating pain, I looked back

half-dazed on my experiences after I had become “Yamaguchi Yoshiko.”

I first tried in earnest to restart my career as a vocalist, and then as a stage

actor, but both ended in failure. I then decided to make a comeback in the cinematic world from which I had taken a temporary leave. And then I went to the

United States with the hope of expanding the scope of my artistic endeavors, and

became the first Japanese to appear in postwar Hollywood movies. I performed

on Broadway and married a sculptor in New York. I befriended Charlie Chaplin,

along with other internationally known actors, and started a busy career that

spanned the United States and Japan. On the other hand, my inability to reconcile the demands of career and family eventually led to my decision to get a divorce. During a time of distress, I met a young diplomat whom I later married. I

then withdrew from the world of cinema and theater before beginning a new life

as a full-time housewife.

257

258

Addendum

As I immerse myself in such memories, I wish to briefly register my experiences as “Yamaguchi Yoshiko” after bidding farewell to “Li Xianglan,” if also

for the purpose of underscoring my own perspective on the life and times of

the latter.

*

*

*

On April 1, 1946, I landed in Kyushu’s Hakata Harbor with Kawakita Nagamasa.

The night before, when I was asked to sing “The Evening Primrose” at a show held

on the deck of the expatriation vessel Unzen Maru, I greeted my audience by

saying, “Ri Kōran has died. I now wish to live as Yamaguchi Yoshiko once again.”

After landing, I likewise gave the same answer to reporters regarding my future

plans. Subsequent newspaper reports on my “retirement statement” highlighted

the fact that I was really Japanese rather than my intent to retire from acting. Up

to that time, most Japanese still believed that “Ri Kōran” was Chinese.

The Imperial Apartments in Tokyo’s Nogizaka where I used to live was half

destroyed during the air raids, and Atsumi Masako had already been evacuated

to Chiba. I had no relatives in Tokyo; my family still had not been repatriated from

Beijing, nor had I received any communications from them. With absolutely no

one to rely on, I ended up availing myself of Kawakita’s kindness by taking up

residence in his house in Kamakura. Kawakita’s wife, Kashiko, and their daughter, Kazuko, had been repatriated to Japan just a little before us. The Western-style

dwelling directly on the opposite side of their own residence, also owned by the

Kawakita family, had been requisitioned by the Americans and was then used as

a home for an American naval officer and his family. I became a freeloader in a

room on the first floor.1

Iwasaki Akira and Atsumi Masako came to Kamakura for visits one after another. The latter asked to continue her prewar role as my attendant, but, after my

retirement, I no longer had any such need. Atsumi brought along a large glass candy

jar fi lled with white sugar, a rationed commodity during the war, and my share

had fi lled up the container in no time.

Tokyo had been struck by air raids immediately after my departure for Shanghai. While Nogizaka’s Imperial Apartments had managed to escape total destruction, the building was hit by several incendiary bombs. One had apparently pierced

right through my bed and the bedroom floor before penetrating all the way down

to the basement. After the air raids, Iwasaki was good enough to retrieve my remaining belongings to his Setagaya home and store them in a small shack he had

put together in his garden. He even built a temporary lodging for me in anticipation of my being homeless in the event of my successful return to Japan.

Soon after we met in Kamakura, he was assaulted on August 28, 1946, at his

own home by a right-wing thug brandishing a Japanese sword, and suffered a cut

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

259

on the left side of his face. As production director of Japan Films (Nihon Eigasha), he had made a number of progressive documentaries, including The Japanese Tragedy (Nihon no higeki) and One Year into the Occupation (Senryō no ichinen).2 That appeared to have been the reason for the attack.

While grateful for Iwasaki’s kind arrangements, I decided to remain in Kamakura. Noticing my anxiety about getting a job to support myself, Kawakita advised that, for the time being, I continue my singing lessons. He then introduced

me to the vocalist Yoshiko Beltramelli, also a Kamakura resident, and later to Madame [Margarete] Netke-Löwe, who lived in Tokyo’s Mejiro area. As Ms. Beltramelli and Madame Netke-Löwe specialized respectively in the Italian and German styles, that arrangement perplexed me, trained as I was from the outset in

the Russian style.

In October of the year of my repatriation, there were talks about having me

perform at a recital at the Imperial Theater (Teikoku Gekijō).3 While making an

appearance as a “vocalist” so abruptly on a stage as prominent as Teigeki was the

height of presumptuousness, I could not afford to miss the opportunity. On that

occasion, I sang some Chinese songs such as “Day Lilies” (Wang’you’cao) and “If

Only We Had Met before I Was Another Man’s Wife” (Hen bu xiangfeng weijia

shi), some Japanese numbers such as “Trifoliate Orange Blossoms” (Karatachi no

hana), as well as arias from La Bohème and Madame Butterfly. I sang for all I was

worth, all the while without any confidence. Quite naturally, the reviews in the

papers were not all that positive.

The following April, I appeared in a musical My Old Kentucky Home (Kentakkī

hōmu) at the same venue, singing American folk songs as the wife of the composer [Stephen] Foster, a role played by Mori Masayuki. The audience seemed to

have enjoyed my performance, but, alas, the reviews this time were not exactly

glowing either. I myself would like to think that partly that had to do with the

fact that Broadway musicals had not yet been established in Japan beyond the kind

of performances put on at Asakusa’s music halls and by Japan’s all-female troupes.

After a series of trials and errors, Tōhō’s Drama Division encouraged me to

take on the challenge of performing in theater. My first stage appearance was You

Can’t Take It With You (Wagaya no rakuen), a prewar Broadway hit later made

into a Frank Capra film before earning critical acclaim in Japan as well. Directed

by Hijikata Yoshi,4 the play included such veteran actors as Takizawa Osamu, Uno

Jūkichi, and Mori Masayuki.5 I was supposed to play the young maiden Alice, a

role earlier performed by Jean Arthur. After I made considerable effort memorizing the lines and making preliminary preparations, however, the play was abruptly

canceled. Conflicts had arisen regarding copyright negotiations, leading Tōhō to

abandon the whole idea in favor of staging Tolstoy’s Resurrection, thereby changing my role from a cheerful Yankee girl to that of a tragic Russian heroine.

260

Addendum

The reason the Russian play was selected was that the American side demanded

a huge sum of money for its copyright privilege, whereas the Soviet side was good

enough to offer us, free of charge, the script from the Moscow Art Theater. The

latter’s condition was that the Japanese side not alter a single word in the given

dialogue. A performance based on that particular script, interpreting Tolstoy’s original as a story of a man awakened to the revolution, would give the Soviet Union

a godsend opportunity at ideological propaganda. Indeed, bringing bouquets of

flowers, the Cultural Attaché and others from the Soviet Embassy came to visit

our dressing room a number of times with words of encouragement.

The play had a distinguished cast: Takizawa Osamu was the narrator, Mori

Masayuki played Nekhlyudov, and other actors included Yamagata Isao, Shimizu

Masao, Uno Jūkichi, and Susukida Kenji. In his abstruse language, Hijikata explained the production’s objective in terms of “further developing Tolstoy’s exposé of the shortcomings of Romanov Russia from his Christian humanist perspective.” For my part, what I could very well understand was Takizawa Osamu’s

view on acting, that “the theater is driven not by ideological metaphysics but by

the physicality of action!” To practice the scene where Katyusha Maslova staggers

to the law court, I stood in front of a mirror at home while drinking from a bottle

of port wine. I became so caught up in the workout that I ended up emptying the

whole bottle, leaving me with a hangover and a splitting headache. Someone also

taught me the following: “See, your body moves from side to side if you stand on

a moving train. You try to steady it on your own, but you just can’t. That’s what

being drunk feels like.” When I actually made the experiment, it felt exactly as

I’d been told.

There was a scene where, upon the judge’s declaration to send Maslova into

exile in Siberia, she defended herself by shouting, “No, I didn’t kill anyone!” Following the advice that my voice should sound like “water being squeezed out of a

towel,” I practiced the line repeatedly by shouting into the garden. The drills once

invited a visit from a police officer who apparently came to investigate after receiving a report from my shocked neighbors.

We gave fift y performances of Resurrection in twenty-five days. Despite Asahi

Shimbun’s derisive reference to the “irony” of my making a “titular comeback on

stage after singing debacles,” I had made up my mind to devote my career to the

modern theater and joined the Popu lar Art Troupe (Minshū Geijutsu Gekijō)

formed by Takizawa and others; it was the predecessor to the current People’s Art

Troupe (Gekidan Mingei). Besides the performers in Resurrection and such Shingeki actors as Katō Yoshi and Kitabayashi Tanie, the organization also included

Takehisa Chieko, Natsukawa Shizue, Mochizuki Yūko, Shibata Sanae, and myself from the cinematic world and the popu lar theater. Hoping to popularize the

Shingeki theater, the troupe first performed an adaptation of Shimazaki Tōson’s

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

261

Broken Commandment (Hakai). I played the role of O-Shiho, a performance later

taken to task by Tokyo Shimbun for my inability to “fuse the role into the overall

movement as a whole.” Whether I performed classical songs or serious theatrical

parts, it appeared that there was an inescapable role overlap with my image as

Li Xianglan.

Just then, somebody brought up the subject of having me appear in a film, a

Shōchiku production directed by Yoshimura Kōzaburō called The Shining Day of

My Life (Waga shōgai no kagayakeru hi, [1948]). Though I had made it clear that

I would not appear in any movie, it was difficult to say no when the Popu lar Art

Troupe with which I was affi liated had contracted with Shōchiku on the production. Or rather I should say that I myself, then driven into a corner, had also been

thinking about making a comeback in film. As I was getting less and less confident about myself as a stage actor, I began to entertain the idea that my abilities

might be better suited to the silver screen.

One other impetus came from my family situation. Just then, my parents

and siblings had successively been repatriated from China. After moving from

Kawakita’s house in Kamakura to Yukigaya and thence to Shimo- Ochiai in

Tokyo’s Ōta and Shinjuku wards, respectively, I finally managed to secure a loan

from Tōhō to purchase a single-family home in Suginami ward’s Asagaya district.

While I was happy that our family of eight was able to live under one roof, the responsibility for making loan payments and for supporting the household all fell

on my shoulders as the family’s eldest daughter. Spurred on by Kawakita and

Takizawa’s enthusiasm, I myself began to think of making a new career breakthrough with this new fi lm venture.

The Shining Day of My Life tells a story unheard of in Japanese fi lm. Beginning with the assassination of a prominent pacifist official (Inoue Masao) by a young

military officer (Mori Masayuki) amidst the tumult just before the war ended, it

goes on to depict the subsequent relationship between the victim’s daughter and

the assassin, later a drug addict and a corrupt newspaperman. The young woman,

reduced by circumstances to working as a cabaret dancer, falls in love with her

father’s killer without knowing his real identity. Later, even after she learns the

truth, she still passionately loves the young man.6

Critics greeted the film enthusiastically for its portrait of the fallen human

condition against a new social milieu with values diametrically opposite those of

the prewar days. My acting, too, seemed to have earned a small degree of recognition, and the kissing scene toward the end in particular was much talked about.

That said, having no experience in performing kissing scenes, I simply followed director Yoshimura’s instructions. It may not be easy to imagine what happened next in this day and age, with all its uninhibited representations of sex, but

just shooting a kissing scene back then was enough to generate a wave of tension

262

Addendum

inside the studio. First, the place was off-limits to all unconcerned parties. The

director meticulously experimented with the camera angle over and over and gave

instructions about how the embrace was to be performed and how long our positions must be held intact. The signal to end the kiss turned out to be a poke at our

feet with a laundry pole by the director himself.7

The Shining Day of My Life was ranked number five among the ten best fi lms

of the year by Kinema Junpō.8 I played the role of a cabaret dancer with Takizawa

Osamu’s words in mind, that performances are not driven by ideology but by the

physicality of action, just as how a reviewer described my acting.

Cinematic roles began to knock on my door one after another. After appearing in a Dai’ei production called The Passionate Mermaid (Jōnetsu no ningyo) in

the same year, I starred in the following year, 1949, in a succession of three ShinTōhō films—Shooting Star (Nagareboshi), The Human Condition (Ningen moyō),

and Homecoming (Kikoku).

It was also the same year that I appeared in Escape at Dawn (Akatsuki no

dassō), a fi lm based on Tamura Taijirō’s original antiwar novel Biography of a

Prostitute (Shunpuden). It was said that Tamura took the searing summer landscape in Henan as his motif and Li Xianglan’s starring image as his inspiration

for portraying the heroine. “I trust that you, someone who knows the scorching

land of Henan, would appreciate the atmosphere in the last scene in the scorching sand.”

Kurosawa Akira prepared the script while Taniguchi Senkichi served as director.9 Going against the grain of conventional Japanese cinematic representation, the film unflinchingly depicts a soldier’s love affair, an absolutely taboo subject

during wartime Japan. Filmed against the panorama of an imposing landscape, the

flaming passions between Harumi (my role), a singer sent to comfort the fighting

men, and Private First Class Mikami (Ikebe Ryō) lead to an attempted desertion

and ultimate death under an executive officer’s (Ozawa Eitarō) machine-gun fire.

With their dying bodies about to be buried under the sand, the film concludes

with the scene of the lovers’ hands reaching out for each other before vanishing

into the dust storm. I recall a newspaper review comparing the last tragic scene

to [Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1949 film] Manon. Escape at Dawn later became

much talked about partly as a result of the passionate scenes I had with Ikebe; it

was selected as number three for the year’s Ten Best Films.10 More than anything,

I was happy to be viewed as “having been reborn as a Japanese film actress.”

*

*

*

In 1950, after appearing in Shōchiku’s First Love Hullabaloos (Hatsukoi mondō)

and Womanly Craze (Onna no ryūkō), I costarred with Mifune Toshirō in Kurosawa Akira’s Scandal (Shūbun Sukyandaru). After the shooting ended, I received

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

263

an invitation to visit the United States. With a three-month stay scheduled, my

plans included a recital, which had been advertised among Japanese expatriates

in Hawaii and Los Angeles, followed by a tour of Hollywood. Being the second

Japanese actress after Tanaka Kinuyo to visit the United States after the war, I met

with reporters immediately upon arrival in Los Angeles. When asked what I wished

to study in the United States, I replied, “I’d like to learn how to kiss,” an answer

prompted by a fi lm critic’s advice before my departure encouraging me to “learn

how to do a beautiful love scene.” The next morning’s paper carried a large photograph of me with a caption reading, “Kiss Me Please.” Apparently, this absurdly

incoherent exchange had been well-received in the United States, as evidenced by

a continuous stream of interview requests coming in beginning the next day.

While I was touring Hollywood, I began to experience a surge of what one

might call wild ambitions. Now that I had made my way to that country, I wished

to master flawless English and to really learn how to sing and act so that I could

appear in American fi lms as well as on Broadway. As somebody already accustomed to the international environment in Harbin and Shanghai, perhaps I had

already within me a cosmopolitan disposition and a vagabond’s spirit. I was consumed with the presumptuous desire to make my name in the most distinguished

venues in the world. Quickly, I extended my period of stay and started to take private lessons from an instructor of diction from New York’s Actors Studio.

The acting instructor there was Elia Kazan, the great socially engaged master

of such works as East of Eden and A Streetcar Named Desire. The studio established

its illustrious reputation for teaching the basic art of acting for both screen and

stage. I also took private lessons in English and French. The fees were high, and so

I had to move to a cheap apartment and cut down on my other living expenses.

My French instructor taught English to the French, and among her pupils was

the chánson singer Édith Piaf, a longtime performer at New York’s best-known

French cabaret, the Versailles. Her songs were always superb; I also respected her

as a singer, a woman, and a human being. With her petite frame of less than five

feet sheathed in a one-piece black dress with barely any frill of jewelry, she would

stand on a dimly lit stage and sing with her gaze affi xed at some distant spot. The

way she moved her white fingers just struck me as indescribably voluptuous. She

drank, smoked, used drugs, and manifestly fell into addiction, but she also always

loved and sang her love with the most unadulterated of feelings. The day I heard

her sing “Hymne à l’amour” in her own lyrics lamenting the death of her boxer

lover in a plane crash, my French teacher and I just held each other in an embrace,

unable to utter a word.11

I was also lucky to be reunited with Madame Bella Mazel, who had come to

New York from Shanghai after the war, and to be able to resume my vocal lessons

with her.

264

Addendum

While I continued with my studies, Joseph Bernhard, a fi lm producer and a

friend of Kawakita Nagamasa’s, suggested a role for me in a production called Japanese War Bride (Higashi wa higashi, originally titled Sensō hanayome [1952]), a

story about a Japanese nurse married to a U.S. army lieutenant wounded during

the Korean War. After the couple’s return to California, the frosty manner with

which she is treated by those around her leads to her attempted suicide, but eventually everything works out with a happy ending. Despite its trivial plot, the film

was being produced at a time when the presence of war brides was becoming an

issue in various parts of the United States. Directed by King Vidor, the fi lm also

stars Don Taylor, my counterpart who had appeared with Elizabeth Taylor in Father of the Bride.

After passing what amounted to an interview with director Vidor, I signed a

formal contract which promised to pay twenty thousand dollars for my part. It was

decided that “Shirley Yamaguchi” was to be my stage name; “Shirley,” a common

name among American women, was derived from the sounds of “Xia” and “Li”

from “Li Xianglan.” In a happy combination of good luck, I also passed the first

audition for the role of a Chinese princess in the Broadway musical Marco Polo.

The subsequent auditions involving dialogue delivery, theme song per formance, dancing, and the like continued for a month. There were thirty candidates

for the role, meaning that I had twenty-nine rivals. With my handicap in English,

all I could do was to consult the dictionary while going over the script and then

memorizing it by heart. In particular, I found it impossible to distinguish the sounds

of “l” and “r,” and between “v” and “b.” Indeed, while filming Japanese War Bride,

my line “The flags are flying” apparently came out sounding “The frogs are fried,”12

thereby setting off a burst of laughter among the staff.

It was decided unofficially that my counterpart in Marco Polo was to be Tony

Martin. Having been the unofficial pick for leading roles in both a film and a musical, I turned all of a sudden into the woman of the hour, entertaining a series of

interview requests from weeklies such as Time and Newsweek and from radio and

television stations. I appeared on NBC’s then popular Walter Winchell Show with

the star baseball player Joe DiMaggio before his marriage to Marilyn Monroe. That

appearance brought me into the company of Broadway actors gathering around

Winchell. One time, Winchell invited DiMaggio and me to watch the very popular musical The King and I, and we visited its star, Yul Brynner, in his dressing

room. After that, Brynner would call and take me to such well-frequented spots

among New York’s socialites as 21 and the Latin Quarter. After dinner, I would

go to the West Side on alternate days for instruction at Madame Mazel’s studio.

Brynner was good enough to pick me up after the lesson; then we would do things

like drop in on his good friend Marlene Dietrich at her apartment and go out all

together to a restaurant.

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

265

Yul Brynner had a colorful past. Born in Sakhalin (Karafuto) to a Mongolian father and a gypsy mother of Romanian descent, he grew up in Beijing, studied at the Sorbonne, and became active in a Moscow drama troupe.13 Just around

the time we got acquainted, he had won many estimable prizes for his part in

The King and I; he was, so to speak, the king of Broadway. That he was good

enough to be a frequent escort to a mere fledgling like me could, I suppose, be

attributed to our congeniality from our common Asian background. His photograph with me in a kimono would sometimes find its way into some of the papers’

social columns.

When he invited me to his apartment, he would play the guitar and sing Russian folk songs or gypsy numbers. As I, too, knew Russian folk songs quite well,

we would hum the melodies in unison—a scene that I cherish in my memory.

The fi lming of Japanese War Bride was set to take place in June 1951, before

which time I had once returned to Japan. The biggest event that happened during

my some eighteen-month stay in New York, however, was my meeting with the

sculptor Isamu Noguchi.

New York was a city bubbling with energy, a place where all kinds of visitors

came from all over the world. With dazzling frequency, I was able to meet firstrate artists and scholars. Even though it happened by chance, I had the good fortune to meet Yukawa Hideki and his wife in a Japanese restaurant.14 I also had

the opportunity to visit the residence of Eleanor Roosevelt.

I couldn’t remember exactly where I first met Noguchi, but it was at one of

the parties that seemed to take place night after night. After that, it was Ishigaki

Eitarō and his wife, Ayako, who provided the occasion for my leisurely conversation with Noguchi.15 I first met the Ishigakis at the home of Pearl Buck, the Nobel

Prize winner in literature, who in turn was introduced to me by Richard Rodgers

and Oscar Hammerstein of Broadway musical fame.

As I was learning about musicals, the songwriting duo who had made a name

for themselves for a series of famous works such as South Pacific were having their

eyes on me as a budding apprentice. The two of them, like their good friend Pearl

Buck, were dedicated volunteers helping Asian refugees and orphans. After visiting the Elizabeth Sanders Home in Japan, Pearl Buck was having conversations

with Sawada Miki and others regarding the reception of racially mixed babies from

Japan.16 As revealed in her works such as the well-known novel The Good Earth,

Pearl Buck had a deep concern for Asian countries, and for China in par ticu lar.

Rodgers and Hammerstein seemed to come up with the idea of introducing us to

each other after learning about my background as someone born and bred in China.

I can still clearly remember my impression of Pearl Buck’s Philadelphia residence during my first visit. Its quiet neighborhood had a serene ambience unimaginable from the perspective of the boisterous hustle and bustle of New York. The

266

Addendum

first time I met the Ishigakis was at a charity fashion show held at Pearl Buck’s,

with various foreign students taking part as models. I wore a kimono, as did Ayako,

who, for some reason, also had her Western-style shoes on. Amazingly, that particu lar combination did not strike me as particularly odd. In that party, I got to

know her quite well, and it was through her that I heard about Isamu Noguchi,

a second-generation Japanese American.

I was unfamiliar with the art world, and had no knowledge that he was a sculptor of international fame. Likewise, I only learned later that his father, Yone Noguchi (also known as Noguchi Yonejirō), was a world-renowned poet.17 Perhaps

because of our age difference—he was fifteen years older—I was not particularly

thinking of him as a member of the opposite sex when we first met. On the other

hand, I was astounded when he said, “You must have suffered during the war. I,

too, anguished over Japan’s war with the United States.” In a spiritual sense, I was

a mixed-race child between China and Japan, and he, in a literal sense, was a mixedrace child between Japan and the United States. When I became conscious of this

fact, I felt that there was something of a common thread between us.

The next time we met was at the Ishigakis’ Greenwich Village house to which

both Noguchi and I were invited. According to what Ayako told me later, she came

up with the idea of arranging a sort of pre-marriage o-miai party for us. After witnessing Noguchi and me together at a New York party, she had formed the impression that the two of us might very well make a congenial couple.

On the other hand, the painter Eitarō, a longtime resident in the United States,

was a friend of Noguchi Yonejirō’s and had known his son since his early teen years.

Eitarō and Isamu’s friendship continued as fellow New York artists after the latter

became a sculptor, but Eitarō had apparently become fretful over the bachelorhood of his already forty-six-year-old friend.

At the time of our visit, Isamu had just returned from Japan and brought along

for Eitarō several volumes of Japanese art magazines. Just a cursory glance through

the pages made me realize that Isamu was a sculptor of world renown. My interest in him, however, was unrelated to his artistic fame. His words to me when we

first met, “You must have suffered during the war,” had left a deep impression on

me. He spoke only broken Japanese, and as soon as he became exasperated by his

own clumsiness with the language, he switched to his rapid-fire English and asked

me point-blank, American-style, one question after another. One of the questions

he posed was, “You debuted in Manchuria as a Chinese actress. In other words,

you were being used by the Japanese military as a propaganda tool, right?” Hearing that, I was brought to mind of an earlier comment by a Japanese woman next

to me at a party somewhere, “My, my! So you were that Chinese actress Li Xianglan, and now you’re Yamaguchi Yoshiko the Japanese? We thought you were Chinese all along! So, we’ve all been fooled, haven’t we?” At the time, her words stabbed

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

267

like a dagger. This time, Noguchi’s direct characterization of me as the army’s propaganda tool, conversely, was easier for me to accept with an open mind.

For me born in China and Isamu in the United States, there was something

about the Japanese way of thinking that we both found a little alien. We were kindred spirits in our sense of loss of a native home; we could also empathize with

each other’s wistful yearnings for a native soil, as both of us were rootless souls

who didn’t seem to have a country we could truly call our fatherland. After dating several times, not only did we share feelings in connection with our circumstances, I also began to develop a strong respect for him as an artist.

I was moved when I saw his total dedication to his work. Like Ishigaki’s studio, Noguchi’s atelier was situated in Greenwich Village with its congregation of

poor artists. While working in what looked like a small neighborhood workshop,

he reminded me of the village blacksmith in a popular song who wouldn’t waste

even the slightest moment while working with his hammer.18 In his dusty, dirty

work clothes, he would sculpt granite, melt bronze in the burner, and shave wood

using a delicately made chisel.

Noguchi had clear blue eyes like his mother of English descent. I once worried about the specks of stone dust lodging in those blue pupils, but before I knew

it I began to adore them as particles of stardust. That, however, might have just

been a reflection of my personal hang-up for an artist whose international acclaim derived from the abstruseness of his abstract art. At the time he proposed

marriage, I did wish to continue our relationship, but I also asked him to wait for

a year to allow me to sort out my feelings. Treating me, a mere film actress, as an

artist like himself, Noguchi told me that he wanted to share with me his creative

energies and visions about life’s loftier goals. There was also agreement between

his artistic sentiments “to always feel free like a little bird” and my own priority

of putting career over marriage. We were engaged with two conditions in mind,

that we would not interfere in each other’s work, and that we would separate amicably as friends should obstacles develop in the pursuit of our careers.

*

*

*

During the period when we were engaged, the most unforgettable friendship I made

through Noguchi’s introductions was the one with Charlie Chaplin. When first

invited to Chaplin’s house in Beverly Hills, I went with Noguchi and brought along

a set of two Japanese carp streamers (koi-nobori) as a present. Chaplin was fond

of children and had many himself. Quite knowledgeable about things Japanese,

he knew exactly the meaning behind the decoration. He called out for all his

children—as I recall there were five or six of them—and held up the streamers

high above his head as he ran, breathless and perspiring, from his dining room to

the living room just to demonstrate how the carps swim in mid-air. He had a big

268

Addendum

house, and there were a good fift y meters between the two points. His wife Oona,

Nobel Prize laureate Eugene O’Neill’s daughter whom he had married after a

legendary Hollywood romance, was also quite taken by the gift herself and stroked

the streamers fondly with her hand.19

At the time, Chaplin was making preparations for the fi lm Limelight. After

our meal, he announced that he had finished working on the theme music and

wanted us to hear it on his piano. There were about ten artist friends in the gathering that night—painters, poets, photographers, and others—and the overall

impression was that the music was “too syrupy.” “Hey, people, it’s a pure love

story between a washed-up entertainer and a young ballerina! Of course the melody is sweet!” he protested before bringing out his violin for another performance. He played the song so many times that I even remembered the fact that

he was left-handed. The song, “Terry’s Theme,” turned out to be a great hit around

the world.20

A few days later, Oona called and asked if I wanted to come to a Warner Brothers’ studio to watch the recording of Limelight’s music. The full orchestra of some

hundred and twenty people tried to play the music any number of times, only to

be greeted with a string of “No good” from Chaplin the conductor. As far as this

fi lm was concerned, he was the producer, director, star, composer, and choreographer, “the great dictator” of the first order. The rehearsal started at nine in the

morning, and it was not until five in the afternoon that the real recording got

underway.

While staying in Hollywood during the shooting of The War Bride, Noguchi

and I were once the invited guests of the graphic designer Charles Eames at his

Santa Monica house. The honored guest on that occasion was Chaplin. Since he

expressed his wish for sukiyaki, I was asked to prepare the food. Chaplin was an

avid Japanophile, and during the sake rounds after the meal, he proclaimed that

he wanted to do a “special act” for our eyes and proceeded to perform a Japanese

dance. To be sure, it was an attempt at imitation, but he was a much better dancer

than I was.

His next performance, a nō dance, was also wonderfully done. He then went

on to declare that the next item was to turn himself into a painted pine tree on a

nō stage. Deft ly folding his limbs into place, he managed to strike a dramatic pose

while standing on one leg, and all the spectators responded with spontaneous applause. As a product from the silent film era, pantomime had an air of seriousness about it regardless how comic the gestures might be.

On another occasion, the after-mealtime activity at director King Vidor’s house

in Hollywood was to play charades. Divided into two teams, we had to guess what

our partners were trying to tell us through gestures. Nobody could understand

Chaplin’s, rendering him the poorest player. By accident, I was supposed to sim-

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

269

ulate “Tokyo Rose,” a role that evoked quite a bit of mixed emotions within me.

In any case, Chaplin’s “theory” on art still stays in my mind to this day:

If you want people to laugh, you shouldn’t try to force it. The only time they

would do so is when you are totally yourself. For instance, let’s say someone

puts on a fancy tuxedo and shiny shoes and goes into a room, fully aware

that he’s the center of attention. And then he steps on a banana skin and

tumbles on the ground. Everybody bursts into laughter, not because the guy

behaves in any funny way but because his puffed up demeanor gets deflated

so suddenly into misery and embarrassment—not something he himself would

laugh at.

When Chaplin visited Japan, I was asked to be his interpreter and guide. Highly

sophisticated in the traditional arts such as kabuki, kyōgen, and nō, he studied them

enthusiastically so that he could fully incorporate his new findings into his own art.

After he left the United States as a result of McCarthyism’s “Red Scare,” I visited him

a number of times at his villa in Switzerland. I cannot begin to tell how much I have

learned from this great actor and what a great influence he had on my life.

*

*

*

In April 1951, due to the expiration of my visa, I returned to Japan after a year’s

sojourn in the United States. Noguchi came as well, having business to attend to

in Tokyo himself. The shooting schedule for The War Bride, however, forced me

to return immediately to Los Angeles. My life away from Noguchi thus began early.

While we both made our careers our top priority, we did whatever was necessary

in order to live together. We maintained living quarters in both the United States

and Japan, and in October of the same year after making all the preparations, we

announced our marriage plans in New York before having our wedding in December in Japan. Mr. and Mrs. Umehara Ryūzaburō acted as our official matchmakers. Serving in the ceremony as Noguchi and my guardians were the painter

and Mrs. Inokuma Gen’ichirō, and Mr. and Mrs. Kawakita Nagamasa, respectively.

In Japan, we lived in Ōfuna in the city of Kamakura, where we rented a

rustic tea house belonging to the ceramicist Kitaōji Rosanjin, a friend of Noguchi’s.21 A section of the living quarters was remodeled into an atelier where he

worked assiduously.

*

*

*

I have scarcely mentioned my family so far. Part of the reason has to do with my

own fuzziness about the conventional notion of a family, given the fact that I had

lived apart from my own throughout the Li Xianglan phase of my life. That said,

270

Addendum

it is also true that, subconsciously, I have no desire to bring up the subject of my

father with whom, sadly, I severed my relationship soon after my marriage.

After my whole family of eight was finally repatriated to Japan in 1948, we

were able to live under one roof. Father was a generous and cheerful man by nature; if anything, he was the gullible type, ready to please with a penchant toward

magnanimity. This personality, however, had been undergoing a radical change.

By then, his behavior was increasingly swayed by delusions of grandeur, and when

he ventured into business undertakings, he met with failure. Incapable of comprehending the harsh reality of life, he ended up being sweet-talked into concocting preposterous dreams of striking huge fortunes in a single stroke. Even the

joviality associated with his love for sake in the past had turned into a miasma

of gloom.

The profession of an actress might appear glamorous on the surface, but it

could hardly afford the extravagance outsiders might imagine. My income as an

actress had been drained by payments for our housing loan, family living expenses, and the financial hole created by Father’s business debacles. The loan

that I had incurred for my one-year stay in the United States also weighed heavily on my shoulders. And yet, such financial burdens were the kind that could be

resolved as long as I had work to do. After consulting Mother, I decided to rent

half of our Asagaya house so that the income could partially support my living

expenses after my marriage. By the time I temporarily returned home from

New York, Father had long since departed, leaving only word that he had to go

to Kyushu for work.

One day, a piece of certified mail came with papers demanding that we repay

a loan for which our Asagaya house had been used as mortgage. The news came

as a bolt out of the blue. It goes without saying that I, the title-holder of the property, had never been consulted on this matter in any way.

After I hurriedly returned to the United States subsequent to my one-month

stay in Japan, Father made an unannounced appearance from Kyushu before the

family. In the fall of the same year when I returned to Japan for my marriage ceremony, I found him in high spirits, saying, “This time my luck has arrived! If I can

pull this job off, all the money in the world will come rolling in! When that happens, I’ll pay you back all I owe you, okay?” I tried my best to dissuade him from

acting recklessly and to set him on the right course, but my efforts proved futile.

Then all of a sudden, three men showed up to evict us from our property because the payment deadline for the loan had arrived. The document had an authentic stamp from my registered seal. The purpose of the loan was to ostensibly

provide for “marriage expenses,” and the transaction date was exactly the same

day as my ceremony. Once I realized what was happening, I could hardly suppress

my surging emotions.

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

271

Not knowing what to do, I told Kawakita Nagamasa and Mori Iwao everything and consulted Tōhō’s lawyers. The latter told me that I could get my house

back only if I took legal action against my father. In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to turn him into a criminal. Father, on the other hand, ended up leaving us

behind in Asagaya, perhaps unable to allow himself to stay any longer. Taking his

mistress with him, he returned to his hometown in Saga Prefecture and lived a

secluded life. We heard later that he was working for his friend’s mining business.

I suggested to Mother that she divorce him by mutual agreement.

And so, the two of them parted after sharing thirty-five years of joys and sorrows. At the same time, all my siblings, myself included, had our names removed

from the Yamaguchi family register. The media then were not as inquisitive as today in digging into every minute detail in the private lives of entertainers and actors. Still, fearing that my family troubles might have an effect on my popularity

ratings once they got into the press, such matters were all hushed up.

Later, Father returned to Tokyo for treatment of an illness, but I was able to

visit him only once. When we received news of his death, we could hardly express

our feelings in words except to offer our prayers for his soul.

That was the same man who had listened with such undivided attentiveness

to my Mandarin pronunciation, the same person who had praised me for having

completed a long trip from Fengtian to Beijing with a “Well done, kid!” and who

had kept the newspaper clipping about my execution in Shanghai with such sympathetic care. . . . My father, when in China, was a kind man.

Come to think of it, I had long forgotten what ordinary family life was like

ever since I was entrusted into the hands of the Pan family in Beijing at the age of

fourteen. After I turned into a Man’ei actress, my “home” was synonymous with

the hotels where I stayed in China or Japan. I had not come across any true experiences of “family affection” as it is conventionally defined, and when the time came

to make a decision, often circumstances did not allow me the luxury to seek my

family’s opinion. On the other hand, the fact that I was able to immerse myself in

my work was also the result of memories of the boundless love with which I was

blessed when I was a child. Even when I was physically separated from my family, I was never besieged with pangs of anxiety or moments of loneliness. To put

it in another way, since my mid-teens, I was virtually living a totally independent

life away from my family without being conscious of the fact myself.

Captivated by the lure of China since he was a young man, Father learned

Chinese and went there as a foreign student. But the changing milieu had apparently perverted the youthful sentiments he once held with such uncorrupted passion for the country into the outlandishly materialistic ambitions of a continental

adventurer. At the time he left home and at the time of his death, I was reminded

of the last moments of Yamaga Tōru. Both men found themselves inextricably

272

Addendum

drawn to China, and both loved the country and its people. Reacting with contempt and aversion toward Japanese military men with their uninhibited arrogance

toward the Chinese people, Yamaga attempted instead to assimilate himself into

Chinese society. In Father’s case, with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War

after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, I remember he once said, “What do you

think will happen if a mere drop of water from River Isuzu goes into the Yellow

River?22 There’s no way that the Japanese can win the war over China, given

China’s enormity as a nation.” When the Japa nese army attempted by force to

cut down the poplar and acacia trees lining Beijing’s streets to make railroad

ties, he orga nized a movement against it, saying “No one will plunder the trees

of Beijing!”

Both Father and Yamaga had been passionately disposed toward the Chinese

continent; both men had been tossed about by the winds and waves of the time to

the point where they finally ended up losing sight of who they were. After their

return to Japan, both experienced frustration as they tried to launch a new beginning for themselves amidst a changed world. Eventually, both became broken

men in both their lives and in their characters.

With Father gone, only Mother and my siblings remained in our Asagaya

home. Shortly afterwards, one after the other, my siblings all began to lead independent lives, got married, had their own families, and lived with their own share of happiness. 

Mother, now ninety-two, is living with my sister’s family as she journeys on through her remaining years. Regrettably, when she sees me, she no longer quite recognizes who I am. . . .

*

*

*

The year was 1952. Having signed a three-year contract with Tōhō, I first appeared

with Mifune Toshirō in Foghorn (Muteki), a drama with a Meiji-period setting

directed by Taniguchi Senkichi. This was followed by three Inagaki Hiroshi films.

The first was a period piece, Sword for Hire (Sengoku burai), in which I again appeared with Mifune. In The Woman from Shanghai (Shanhai no onna), I played a

Shanghai nightclub singer and got the chance to wear a Chinese dress after a long

while. In The Ship of Tumultuous Fortune (Fūun senryōsen), another period piece,

my costar was Hasegawa Kazuo; it was the first time we had worked together in

ten years.

In January 1953, due to business he had to attend to in New York, Noguchi

returned to the United States for an extended stay. I was scheduled to accompany him, but for some reason, I couldn’t get a visa to go. Meanwhile, as the date

for Noguchi’s one-man exhibition in New York was approaching, the fact that

I had been asked to appear in Makino Masahiro’s Last Embrace (Hōyō) led me

to decide to suspend my visit to the United States. After the shooting, I applied

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

273

for a visa once more, but was again turned down. I had the matter investigated

through an acquaintance at the American Embassy, but the reason remained a

mystery.

Under the circumstances, I finally embarked on a European trip. Just then,

Sword for Hire had been entered for screening at the Berlin Film Festival, and I

took the opportunity to be part of the Japanese delegation. After the fi lm festival

ended, Noguchi and I were reunited in Paris. During the interval, Noguchi had

visited Washington with his lawyer to negotiate with the State Department over

my visa issue. Without committing himself to any specific explanation, the official responsible apparently gave a general answer, saying that “We look upon all

artists and scientists as dangerous unless proven otherwise.” Tokugawa Musei, the

fi lm interpreter, was also denied a visa, leading a segment of the Japanese media

to speculate that he might have become a target of the hunt for Communists then

being launched by the House Un-American Activities Committee.23 This development was also reflected in the comment by the same State Department official

that “we regard artists as dangerous because of their receptiveness toward the cosmopolitanism of communism.”

Surprised that I was a suspected Communist and yet unaware of any substantive reasons for such suspicions, I couldn’t do anything other than feel unsettled.

With Paris as my base, I traveled to different parts of Europe. Five months passed,

and yet I still didn’t get my visa. During this period, we spent some time at the

atelier of [Constantin] Brancusi, Noguchi’s teacher and a direct disciple of Rodin’s. We also went to southern France where we visited the atelier of the painter

[Marc] Chagall. This was also the time when I visited India due to the incidental

association of Noguchi’s work with the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial. There I met

Prime Minister Nehru and his daughter, Indira, the late Prime Minister Gandhi.

Charlie Chaplin and his wife invited us to his Vevey villa in the suburbs of Lausanne in Switzerland. Explaining his reasons for leaving the United States, Chaplin said, “It was not the result of my defeat by the House Un-American Activities

Committee in its hunt for Communists. I became sick of America’s rising totalitarianism, and I’ve given up on that country.”

I couldn’t wait forever for my visa. Meanwhile, I appeared in a Chinese fi lm

made in Hong Kong called Heavenly Bliss (Tianshang renjian [1953]), and in March

1954, I returned to Japan for the time being. Just to be sure, I made inquiries in a

roundabout way about the visa at the United States Consulate General in Yokohama, only to be told, anticlimactically, that “the problem has been resolved and

your visa will be issued.”

Shortly afterwards, I learned the truth regarding my visa situation—I had indeed been regarded as a Communist sympathizer and had been on the State Department’s persona non grata list.

274

Addendum

The House Un-American Activities Committee in the U.S. Congress was a

product of the prewar years. The one headed by Senator McCarthy from 1950, the

year of the outbreak of the Korean War, looked upon liberals as Communists and

held a series of hearings on liberal-minded bureaucrats, scholars, and writers before initiating proceedings for their arrest.24 With its impact felt inside the fi lm

industry as well, the tempest of McCarthyism led to investigations of Hollywood

fi lmmakers and actors, subjecting them to a litmus test on possible Communist

connections. Among actors, Edward G. Robinson, Fredric March, and Olivia De

Havilland, among others, were labeled Communist sympathizers. Robert Taylor,

Gary Cooper, and Ronald Reagan (the current President) were also summoned to

the witness stand.

Nancy Reagan, the beloved wife of the President, was at the time an up-andcoming actress called Nancy Davis. While we were not close friends, we often

ran into one another at the Hollywood studio. While President Reagan was

known as a hawk within the Republican Party, he was then a liberal Democrat

who served as President of the Screen Actors Guild. Last year during the Tokyo

Summit, I had a chance to speak with him and share our memories about our

Hollywood days.

The viciousness of McCarthy’s committee led to a strong reaction from the

Screen Actors Guild, and a protest movement developed around Henry Fonda,

Dirk Bogarde, Katharine Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, and others.

Many fi lm artists, primarily directors and screen writers such as Edward Dmytryk, became victims of repression and left Hollywood. It was not until 1953 that

the hunt for Communists began to die down, a development that coincided with

the timing of my visa approval. Ultimately, the McCarthy storm was a bastard

child of the Korean War (1950–1953) and a reflection of the tense international situation amidst an East-West confrontation.

I was unable to ascertain the specific reasons why I had been blacklisted, but

I could think of several pertinent incidents. The first had to do with an episode

that took place when we went to register for our marriage at the Consulate General of the United States. When asked by the Consul General whether I would

“pledge my allegiance to the United States,” I answered “No.” Even though I married an American, I had no wish to become an American myself. After experiencing my hanjian trial in China, I had developed a strong awareness of myself

as a Japanese person, so when asked to pledge my alliance to the United States, I

couldn’t unequivocally answer in the affirmative.

Another time, I was asked by an official from Hollywood’s actors guild to make

a contribution to a fundraising campaign to support its activities, and I did. There

were guilds for various professions in Hollywood, and since different parties had

asked me for contributions, I couldn’t remember each and every one of them ac-

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

275

curately. But once a contribution was made, a receipt would be issued, and the

trade union would retain a copy. There is a possibility that a copy of the receipt

with my signature had been found in an organization sympathetic to the Communist cause.

While my visa seemed to be taking forever to get approved, the media in time

sniffed out that something incredible was going on. Some of the ensuing reports

appeared to have called Yamaguchi Yoshiko “a Communist spy.” I use the phrase

“appeared to” because I was then in Europe and read virtually no Japanese magazines; I heard about this report from friends only after my temporary return to

Japan. There were many embellished narratives making the rounds as if they were

telling the truth. When I looked for the spark that ignited all these stories, I discovered that all of them traced my story back to the Li Xianglan years. These opinions included the following:

—Using the excuse of taking voice lessons, Yamaguchi established contact

with Soviet Communists in major Chinese cities. In Shanghai, she

belonged to a Bolshevik group. (Could they be referring to my association with Madame Podlesov, Madame Bella Mazel, and Liuba’s

family?)25

—Yamaguchi had been communicating secretly with the Soviet Embassy in

Mamiana after her repatriation. She was also closely connected with the

representative Soviet judge in the Tokyo Trials and the cultural attaché

from the Soviet Embassy. (The only truth was that when I was performing the leading role in Tolstoy’s Resurrection based on the screenplay from

the Moscow Art Theater, officials from the Soviet Embassy came to my

dressing room to deliver bouquets of flowers.)

—Yamaguchi returned to Japan bearing secret orders from the Chinese

Communist Party. In Tokyo, Yamaguchi approached prominent personnel from Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang and engaged in intelligence activities. (Right after the war ended, I was invited, while in Shanghai, to

seek refuge in an area in Northeast China that was under Communist

control. On another occasion, I was asked to work as a spy in that region.

In both cases, I refused. As for the prominent Kuomintang official in

Tokyo, I suppose the reference was to a certain general who signed the

Instrument of Surrender on the USS Missouri as China’s representative.

The General had hoped to socialize with me as a fan, but I had refused.

I heard that his jealous wife made false charges against him with President

Chiang’s wife, Madame Song Meiling, and that this resulted in his recall.)

—Yamaguchi joined the Communist Party USA while in New York. Even

after she moved to Hollywood, she continued activities as a Communist

276

Addendum

sympathizer. (Along with such activists as Miyagi Yotoku, who was arrested in the Sorge spy-ring incident, Ishigaki Eitarō and his wife, Ayako, who took care of me when I was in New York, did organize a proletarian artists’ group as well as engaging in antiwar activities. However,

they withdrew from the movement after the war. After their return to

Japan, they had no affiliation whatsoever with any political party or organization.)

There were also reports that I was a CIA spy along with rumors that I was

closely connected with the infamous Canon Unit.26

After the war ended, the Western-style annex of Kawakita’s residence in which

I had been staying as a lodger was requisitioned by the American army and used

by the family of an American naval officer. For that reason, young intelligence officers from the General Headquarters (GHQ) sometimes came as visitors. Graduates of Harvard and Columbia and the State Department’s elite bureaucrats, they

apparently belonged either to G-2 for combat intelligence led by Major General

Willoughby or to the CIS (Counter Intelligence Section) headed by Brigadier General Thorpe. When I was scheduled to perform in American-style dramas or musicals at the Imperial Theater, I would ask them for advice on American customs

and attitudes.

As I recall, by that time I had already moved out of the Kawakita house to

my home in Tokyo’s Yukigaya. There were times when the Americans brought along

their boss, Lieutenant Colonel Jack Canon. I heard that he was a graduate of the

University of Oklahoma, and, compared to the other young officers, he struck me

as a boorish military man with less than cultivated manners. One time, saying

that he would take us for a drive around the suburbs of Kamakura, he had me

sitting next to him while his subordinates took the back seats. Holding a pistol

while driving, he would fire at the birds or squirrels when they came into sight,

and when there was a hit, he would grin in a manner reminiscent of James Cagney in a gangster movie. I thought I was going to die as he drove with such recklessness, braking his car frequently and hard along the way.

It was only after some time had passed that I realized that this man was the

Jack Canon of the Canon Unit. The next time I saw him was at a party held in a

grand mansion called the Hongō House near Yushima-tenjin in Tokyo’s Hongō

area. Again, I only learned later that this building was the villa of the Iwasaki family, the founder of the Mitsubishi financial conglomerate. Used as the headquarters for the Canon Unit after the property’s requisition by the American army, it

was apparently here that the planning for various stealthy operations took place.

Canon had cast an intelligence network surrounding the political and financial

circles of Japan as well as its government and the mass media. He hosted parties

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

277

from time to time, inviting prominent guests from different walks of life. I attended

just one such party on the invitation of the young officers and former visitors of

Kamakura. Once I knew it was Canon’s party, I quickly left—earlier, I was sickened when I was confronted with the sight of a drunken Canon flinging a cat against

the wall.

That was how the theory that I was a CIA spy emerged when the embellished

version of the event was told. As Japan gained its independence with the withdrawal of American troops, various rumors started to die down. Yet occasionally,

such stories were being rehashed. Whenever that happened, I was angry about the

stupidity of the whole thing, even though I have since adopted an attitude of resignation over such matters, realizing that they were the byproducts of the tortuous early half of my life.

The newest rumor about me had to do with the recent Lockheed Scandal.27

Some Japanese weeklies whipped up the reignited story that Li Xianglan was a

CIA spy through allegations about my “relationship” with Robert H. Booth, said

to be an agent for Kodama Yoshio in the incident. Some even went so far as to provide seemingly evenhanded postscripts saying that Yamaguchi Yoshiko, using

the Chinese name Li Xianglan, was living before the end of the war in Shanghai,

where the Kodama machine was located. (Even though there were several tens of

thousands of Japanese living in Shanghai during the same time!)

In Foghorn (1952), I played a Japanese woman who became a Westerner’s mistress. At the time, we had an open recruitment for a Westerner who would play

the German male counterpart. The man chosen was Booth, who remained in Japan

after he was decommissioned from the Occupation forces. I did not meet him at

all after that. As to why I still remember him, in one scene, he managed to evoke

thunderous laughter among the rest of us, as well as a series of NGs. It was a confession scene, and he was supposed to say “Watashi wa kedamono deshita” (“I

was a beast!”), but no matter how many times Director Taniguchi corrected him,

he could only come up with “Watashi wa kudamono deshita” (“I was a fruit!”).

*

*

*

In September 1954, after shooting Tōhō’s The Saturday Angel (Doyōbi no tenshi),

I applied for a visa to join Noguchi in the United States. I couldn’t believe how

effortless the whole process was. Even the Consul General himself showed his face

and feigned ignorance, saying, “I heard you had some trouble before with your

visa application, and I’m terribly sorry. I thought you got it a long time ago and

was already in the United States!”

All in all, I wasted approximately a year’s time over my visa issue. During that

interval, I severed my relationship with my father, and for me, life in Japan was

not an enjoyable experience. As Noguchi was dashing between Paris, New York,

278

Addendum

Washington, and Tokyo for the sake of my visa, he lost his opportunity to design

a garden on New York’s Park Avenue. I, on the other hand, had hoped to audition

for a part in the Broadway show The Teahouse of the August Moon, but I missed

the chance due to my late arrival. During the year, I appeared only in a one-hour

ABC television drama, Tsunami, based on an original story by Pearl Buck. Meanwhile, Noguchi was busy traveling around the world as usual.

Just then, a request from Hollywood came for me to do a Twentieth Century

Fox film entitled House of Bamboo (Tokyo ankokugai in Japanese [1955]) with Robert Ryan and Robert Stack. I played the Japanese lover of an undercover agent who

infi ltrates a gang of robbers. Initially, I declined the invitation as the screenplay

did not give an accurate portrait of Japan and the Japanese, though I later compromised when partial revisions were promised. I returned to Japan for location

shooting in Tokyo before returning to Hollywood, and I ended up being away from

New York for more than half a year.

Not satisfied with his work as a sculptor alone, Noguchi had eagerly taken

up other challenges, including designing stage settings at a Shakespearean theater

in London and a garden in San Francisco. As time passed, his lack of success made

him restless. His participation in a competition for garden design at the United

Nations also ended in failure. I couldn’t be near him to offer him comfort; all

I could do was talk with him by long-distance telephone. That being the situation, strains began to develop in our relationship.

The Hollywood I hadn’t seen for a long while was not the same anymore; Chaplin

was no longer there, and Beverly Hills was now a lonely place as if its flames had

died down. Of course, parties were still held every night, but few were as thrilling as

those at Chaplin’s place with all the painters, musicians, photographers, and poets.

Among my acquaintances in the fi lm industry at that time, the one who left

a strong impression on me was James Dean. While waiting for my turn doing postrecording for House of Bamboo, I had many opportunities to chat with actors appearing in The Virgin Queen and Rebel without a Cause. Dean was enjoying rising popularity after East of Eden had become a worldwide hit, but I found him a

shy youth who preferred to seek solace in solitude. In his natural self, Dean was

but an ordinary young man one would find practically anywhere. Being bashful

and reticent, he very rarely showed up at our nightly social gatherings, preferring

instead to ride his motorcycle or take his racing car for a fast run. He was fond of

animals and was deeply engrossed in composing songs.

Perhaps his constant dejection at the time had something to do with the fact

that he hadn’t recovered from his failed love affair with the actress Pier Angeli.

He created quite a commotion when he disappeared just before the shooting of

Rebel without a Cause, and he was caught several times driving at a speed that

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

279

would put the antics of motorcycle gangs to shame. All such acts were being looked

upon as after-effects of his unsuccessful romance. His only close buddies were a

group of young car maniacs whose leader was the son of the president of Twentieth

Century Fox.

Only once was I invited to their party. It was a group that did silly trivial things

such as driving their cars in a line on the highway, and going out eating and chatting in food joints. What was amazing was that there wasn’t a single girl among

them. The young men were all wearing either pink or red socks as if that was their

uniform. Somebody told me that those fellows were homosexuals, but I didn’t get

such an impression.

Dean and I usually talked at a snack bar next to the studio; we spoke about

China, Japan, and other things. One time, he slumped into a chair and sighed,

“I’m finally done with my dubbing; I’m so exhausted. I can understand why man

uses machines, but don’t you think it’s weird when a machine is driving man to

work like crazy?”

I understood exactly what he meant. This was just the time when the widescreen format was being introduced, and those of us working on Rebel without a

Cause and House of Bamboo were having a very hard time because of it. To shoot

a widescreen scene, five different cameras were used, and each cut took more than

twenty minutes. Due to such long cuts and the intrusion of noise, actors had no

choice but to re-do their sound recordings. Such tedious and intricate postrecording work required a technology that was not yet developed enough to handle it. I remember that such experiences inspired much discussion about Chaplin’s works, especially Modern Times.

I once asked Dean whether he knew anything about Japan. “I know only a

little, but I am very interested. I really wish to go there when I’m done with my

work for the moment.” Yet Rebel without a Cause was followed by his next project,

director George Stevens’ Giant, and then apparently a tight lineup after that.

Among the various performing arts in Japan, Dean was interested in nō drama,

and he apparently attended all the lectures at the Actors Studio on nō and kyōgen.

In his words, he “loved their simplicity.”

After talking about Japan for a while, Dean said, “Would you like to go for a

drive? As a matter of fact, I came with a car I just bought, and you would be my

first passenger.”

It was a silver-gray Porsche Spyder. The car glided smoothly along the slopes

of Beverly Hills before Dean took it out for a short excursion on the highway and

back. As soon as he entered the studio gate, the fans surrounded his new car. With

a shy smile, he dropped me off, hit his accelerator, and roared off. That was the

last time I saw him.

280

Addendum

Just before the completion of Giant in September 1955, James Dean died in a

car crash in Paso Robles, California, when another car driven by a student crossed

into his lane. Dean was twenty-four years old. The car he was driving at the time

was the same silver Porsche.

*

*

*

The time had come to bring an end to my marriage with Isamu Noguchi. After

discussing the matter, we decided to abide by our prior “contractual agreement”

and to get a divorce. The agreed-upon conditions were to respect and not interfere with each other’s work, and should obstacles encroach into that arena, we would

amicably part as friends. Neither extramarital affairs nor economic complications

of any kind entered into the picture. Our inability to find time to accommodate

each other’s needs had then accentuated the incompatibility of our personalities.

Although we were married for four years, we spent less than one year together.

Should this situation be allowed to continue, I thought it would only hamper Noguchi’s work as a sculptor. On my part, I could hardly contemplate the possibility

of leaving my work, now that I had just begun at long last to take my place on the

international stage.

We were well aware that both of us had unusually strong personalities; that

was precisely why we had set our conditions before getting married in the first

place. Our discussion of the matter led to our decision that we would still continue

our relationship as friends.

While living together, we began to notice subtle differences between us. The

fact that Noguchi spoke only broken Japanese and I deficient English sometimes

made nuanced communication impossible. He demanded the same uncompromising fastidiousness from his friends—and naturally from his wife—as he did

from himself. When we were living in Rosanjin’s teahouse, even our footwear had

to match the ambience of the house. It was decided that we would use naturally

rugged zōri sandals made of wood and straw, a variety that just did not agree with

my feet. Even when my skin peeled off and started bleeding, I was not allowed to

change to another kind.

To give another example, one time we went out to visit a friend, and I brought

along a little item as a gift. As I was giving it to our friend, saying, “This is from

us,” Noguchi would immediately contradict me, saying, “Oh no, I had nothing to

do with this present. It’s all her idea.” My repeated explanations to him on “the

etiquette of saving someone’s face,” “a lie told as an expedient,” and “nonverbal

communication through tacit understanding” all fell on deaf ears—to him these

ideas were all nonsense, pure and simple. From his point of view, I suppose my

actions were simply too mysterious for the rational mind to comprehend.

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

281

The experiences of a second-generation Japanese-American and a Chineseborn Japanese might have something in common, but the reality of living together

revealed acute cultural divergence between the East and the West. Subtle differences in language, culture, customs, and habits amplified the pain when emotional

factors came into the mix. Perhaps the fact that we had no children as a result of

my two miscarriages had already sown the seeds of discord.

The fi lm Japanese War Bride, which I made at the time when Noguchi and

I first met, was screened in the United States and Japan in 1951. Film critics in both

countries had taken it to task for its inadequate portrayal of a Japanese woman

married to an American.28 In retrospect, its Japanese title, Higashi wa higashi (East

Is East), derived from the opening of Kipling’s famous poem—“Oh, East is East

and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”—had already suggested something about our future.29

I returned to Japan after the fi lming of House of Bamboo, and in February

1956, I formally announced our divorce.

Isamu Noguchi, now eighty-two, is working in New York as a preeminent

sculptor. In keeping with our “contractual agreement,” we are still good friends.30

*

*

*

After the divorce and the filming of Madame White Snake (Byakufujin no yōren,

directed by Toyoda Shirō [1956]), I quickly flew to New York after receiving an

international telephone call from the producer of the Broadway musical ShangriLa. He asked if I would take the leading role to substitute for the Spanish actress

he was thinking of dropping. Feeling hurt as a result of my divorce, I thought

this could be a chance for my comeback. I had already passed the audition for

the musical a year before, though I had had to decline the role because of my

tight schedule.

Based on James Hilton’s Lost Horizon, Shangri-La tells a love story between

a young girl living in a utopian land deep in the mountains and an American engineer who has lost his way in the area after a plane crash. The two attempt to leave

the land of utopia, only to discover that, once they reach the outside world, the

girl turns into a hundred-year-old woman before she dies—an allegory analogous

to Urashima Tarō and Rip Van Winkle.

Once I reached New York, I was told to fly to Boston immediately. At the airport, I was asked to choose the costumes, given the script, and instructed during

the flight how I should perform the songs.

Broadway shows and musicals started off as local events, with performances

held in major cities on the East Coast such as Boston, New Haven, followed by

Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Their success, however, was measured by how

282

Addendum

long they could run on Broadway; that was the case with South Pacific and The

King and I, both of which became international hits after they were made into films.

On the other hand, negative reviews could abort a running show. Based on local

reactions, the director would attempt improvements through trial and error, such

as by augmenting the dialogue or changing the songs. It was not unusual to make

substitutions for actors during this process, even for those in the leading roles.

I spent the whole night trying to memorize the dialogue, practicing my singing, and getting special lessons in how to dance and act. All I could think of at

the time was to prepare myself for the stage in Boston. I managed to finish my

road show successfully before making preparations for my performance in New

York. Even after the conclusion of my lessons, I declined all nightly invitations by

secluding myself in the Plaza Hotel. As I was playing a Tibetan girl, my voice instructor told me that a little accented English might have the desired Oriental

effect. Not content with just doing second best, I aspired instead to speak my

lines with impeccable pronunciation.

While I secluded myself as usual in my hotel the day before the show’s opening, Kawakita Nagamasa happened to be in New York at the time and called to

invite me for dinner with Japanese representatives attending a United Nations conference. It was a wonderful invitation on his part, one meant to celebrate my success on the eve of my first performance. I was grateful for his thoughtfulness, but

I declined, saying that I would like to spend the night practicing alone. Later in

the afternoon on the same day, I was given a revised script, which I then had to

memorize. I also needed to make sure that my physical condition was up to the

challenges ahead—after all the show had twenty-two scenes in two acts lasting

three and a half hours, plus seven songs to be performed without a microphone.

It was a battle with myself every minute and every second of the way.

The people who had invited me for dinner the night before were unable, due

to their work schedules, to attend my opening-night performance, but together

they sent a large bouquet of flowers to the Winter Garden Theater. The gentleman

who carried in the flowers with his two hands was a tall young man who worked

with the Japanese delegation at the United Nations.

The reviews of Shangri-La’s première were so-so; in the case of the New York

Times, its critic noted the show’s success in “invoking an Oriental atmosphere.”

Meanwhile, the young man who had earlier delivered the flowers now began to

show his face from time to time at my dressing-room door. While nominally a

diplomat, he was a young twenty-eight-year-old without a ranking title. At first,

he came as the liaison for my appearance on a popu lar radio venue called The Tex

and Jinx Show then doing an introductory program on Japan. As this was a time

when Japan had just joined the United Nations, we carefully considered our presentation by repeatedly revising its contents, all in an attempt to give an image

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

283

boost to Japan. The Ed Sullivan Show also requested an interview. To be a guest

on the popu lar show and to be introduced by its host was tantamount to being

recognized as a top entertainer in the world of American show business.

I was invited along with another guest, Julie Andrews, who played the leading role in My Fair Lady, then running on Broadway. We were naturally introduced as worthy rivals before proceeding to sing the theme songs in our respective musicals.

Julie sang wonderfully. I gathered that at first, Broadway’s box-office star Mary

Martin was the one being considered to play Eliza, My Fair Lady’s leading role,

but the up-and-coming Julie Andrews was ultimately picked after her audition.

While in the dressing room awaiting my turn to appear on the television show, I

could already taste defeat. Utilizing whatever little time she had at her disposal,

Julie did vocal exercises, saying, “This show demands a wide vocal range in my

singing, and so I always need to be certain about the kind of voice I can summon

from within me.” At twenty-one, she was fi lled with energy. Tickets for My Fair

Lady were sold out for the entire year in contrast to the just one-month sellout for

Shangri-La.

The show ended at eleven o’clock each night, and after that the staff would go

out to eat. As usual, I would shut myself in the hotel and continue my practice. I

suppose the lack of commercial success of Shangri-La could not be attributed entirely to the lead performer, but, in any case, I was exasperated with the situation.

In the United States, behind every success is the hidden story of people making

extraordinary efforts. This applies to all areas of endeavor, including the world of

Broadway shows, one defined by hard work and true ability. The philosophy of

success meant overcoming the impossible, and those who failed in the task ended

up dropping out of the line. Forced to face such incessant pressure, and the need

to tread ever so warily along the edge of a precipice, I felt completely exhausted.

The person who was good enough to encourage and comfort me then, when I felt

I was a failure in fi lm, on stage, and also in life, was the young diplomat-inthe-making.

Shangri-La’s run was terminated at the beginning of its four-week run, and I

spent the next two weeks resting in bed. Film companies from both Japan and

Hong Kong had made inquiries about my interest in several propositions, but I

decided to stay in New York and gamble on other challenges that might come along.

The young man’s encouragement became the source of my strength. But in

December of that year, he was transferred to Rangoon in Myanmar as third-class

secretary. We had been seeing each other openly in public, and a persistent rumor

had it that his demotion was the Foreign Ministry’s attempt to break us up for fear

that our relationship would turn into a scandal. One day, I was called before his

superior and given a piece of free advice. He was an old acquaintance from the

284

Addendum

Shanghai days where he worked in the Consulate General of Japan. This was

what he told me:

He has not yet established himself in his profession. The marriage between a

promising young man and an older actress will be opposed unanimously by

the Japanese delegation to the United Nations in New York, by the Consulate

General, and by the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo itself. Do you really think this

is an outcome that will make you happy?

Nevertheless, I had already made a firm decision to spend the rest of my life

with the young diplomat. That said, I felt that the world was relentlessly closing

in on me from all sides, as not a single person around us thought it was a good

idea for us to be together. Completely defenseless though he was, the young man

was quite prepared to stand up to face whatever storms might come along, but I

could not allow myself to destroy him by cutting him off from his work, his family, and his friends. In view of the situation, all I could do at the time was to surrender myself. Up till then, although I had given up my identity as Li Xianglan, I

had been unable to abandon my actress’ life. It was true that too many things had

inextricably attached me to the silver screen, but in the latter part of my life in

par ticular, I did try to carve out a new career with my own hands. Others might

have thought that my life as an actress was petty and frivolous, and yet I had

given it all my body and soul; I had even decided on a divorce for its sake. Noguchi had already built his life on solid ground, and the young diplomat-in-the making was just starting his.

It took me two years to fully accomplish the task of retiring from acting. During the interval, the young man repeatedly endeavored to gain whatever degree

of understanding he could secure from those around him. In 1958, after making

my last fi lm, Tokyo Holidays (Tokyo no kyūjitsu, directed by Yamamoto Kajirō),

I became the wife of the diplomat Ōtaka Hiroshi.31

*

*

*

I had a fulfilling new life. Accompanying my husband to wherever his place of

work might be, I dedicated myself to offering him what little help I could. It gave

me great joy to be able to take good care of our family, befriend the people in the

countries where his job took him, and assist him in his work according to diplomatic protocol. During that time, there were any number of outside initiatives to

bring me back to the silver screen, but I had no interest in them whatsoever.

After ten years of marriage, we together managed, one way or another, to settle into an established routine. Around this time, I was occasionally asked to be a

television host or an interviewer. Many requests emanated from an interest in my

The Post–Li Xianglan Years

285

career as a diplomat’s wife, and, quite naturally, I made a number of public appearances. My audience, on the other hand, was probably interested in me only

as the former Li Xianglan or Yamaguchi Yoshiko. Within me, however, I was

beginning to entertain dreams of becoming a journalist, an aspiration I had held

since I was a young girl.

In 1969, I was asked to be a cohost for the Fuji Television program “You at

Three o’Clock” (Sanji no anata).32 At the time, it was still a rarity to have a daytime show of this type, different in orientation from current offerings. To be

sure, the individual segments were still centered on actors, singers, and other

performers, but much more time was devoted to somber discussions of contemporary news topics.

Such serious discussions were hosted by male anchors. My private aspirations

aside, and speaking objectively, I suppose my appearance as a host served merely

an ornamental purpose. Yet I was blessed with a capable staff, and with their help,

there were, among other things, increasing opportunities for me to cover stories

in foreign countries. Up to that time in my career, I had always been the one being

interviewed, and, for that reason, this kind of work was exceptionally appealing

to me. Fancying myself as a journalist, I did as much as I could with a schedule so

tight that I find it astonishing even today.

In August 1970, I went to Vietnam and Cambodia, and in 1971, to four different countries in the Middle East, namely, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel. After that, I flew to Europe and managed to interview a female Red Army

leader who had escaped from Japan.33 For such work, I was awarded a prize for

individual excellence at the television awards ceremony for the year. I worked for

as long as five years as a host for that television program, and the lessons I learned

through that experience were immeasurable.

During the forty odd years before I began working as a TV host, even I myself

could scarcely believe how many places I had lived in and visited. Yet regardless

of where I happened to be, my vision was always circumscribed by the narrow confines of my own surroundings. It was only after I took up the profession of a journalist that I was able, albeit belatedly, to objectively contemplate for the first time

the significance of my life as and after Li Xianglan in the context of world history.

*    *    *

On September 25, 1972, “You at Three o’Clock” carried a live broadcast from

Beijing of the signing of the Joint Communiqué between Japan and the People’s

Republic of China.34 It showed Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei, Premier Zhou Enlai, Foreign Minister Ōhira Masayoshi, and Minister for Foreign Affairs Ji Pengfei

formally signing the document and sealing the pact with a toast of maotai. After

Prime Minister Tanaka and Premier Chou drained their glasses at one gulp, they

286

Addendum

had a long, firm handshake followed by a hug. The preamble to the Sino-Japanese

Communiqué declares the termination of the state of war as well as the keen

awareness and deep reflection on the part of Japan about the serious damages

that it had inflicted in the past to the Chinese people through war.

Meanwhile, flitting before my eyes was the image of Li Xianglan, a woman

whose life had so long been at the mercy of the waves and storms of her time. No

longer conscious of my position as the news anchorwoman, I could hardly hold

back the emotions welling up within me.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Addendum: The Post–Li Xianglan Years

1. Since April 2010, the former Kawakita residence situated in Kamakura’s

Yuki-no-shita area has been turned into the Kamakura City Kawakita Film Memorial Center (Kamakura-shi Kawakita Eiga Ki’nenkan). See its webpage at http://www

.kamakura-kawakita.org/.

2. The thirty-nine-minute documentary Nihon no higeki, directed by Kamei

Fumio in 1946, gave a critical overview of the economic and political conditions leading to Japan’s war of aggression in Asia and offered thinly disguised insinuations about

Emperor Hirohito’s war responsibility. Apparently for those reasons, the film was

banned, with the positives and negatives confiscated, by the Occupation forces at the

urging of none other than Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru. See Yamane Sadao’s commentary on the film in Abé Mark Nornes and Fukushima Yukio, eds., The Japan/

America Film Wars: World War II Propaganda and Its Cultural Contexts (Langhorne,

PA: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994), pp. 265–268 and Hirano Kyoko, “The Occupation and Japanese Cinema,” in The Occupation of Japan: Arts and Culture, ed.

Thomas W. Burkman (Norfolk, VA: General Douglas MacArthur Foundation, 1988),

pp. 145–146.

3. Constructed in the French Renaissance style in Tokyo’s Marunouchi area

in 1911 as Japan’s first modern European-style theater, it was rebuilt after its destruction in the aftermath of the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake.

338

Notes to Pages 259–262

4. Hijikata Yoshi (1898–1959), a student of Osanai Kaoru and German theater,

was the major force behind the 1924 establishment of Tokyo’s Tsukiji Little Theater

and the center of Japan’s New Theater (Shingeki) movement. The founder of the 1929

New Tsukiji Troupe, he staged performances based on such classic proletarian works

as Kobayashi Takiji’s Kani-kōsen (The Cannery Boat) and Kubo Sakae’s Kazanbai-chi

(Land of Volcanic Ash). An exile to the Soviet Union and then Paris during a tumultuous period of authoritarian suppression, Hijikata returned to Japan in 1941, only to be

given a five-year prison sentence. A Japan Communist Party member after the war,

he continued to be active in Japanese theater. See his Hijikata Yoshi engeki ronshū:

Enshutsuka no michi (Tokyo: Meiraisha, 1969).

5. Takizawa Osamu (1906–2000), an extraordinarily accomplished actor in prewar left-wing theater, established the Popular Art Troupe (Minshū Geijutsu Gekijō)

with Uno Jūkichi and came to be known as “the god of Shingeki” (Shingeki no kamisama). Especially noted for his performances in Death of a Salesman, The Merchant

of Venice, and his much-acclaimed interpretation of Van Gogh, he was perhaps best

remembered by English-speaking audiences for his memorable portrait of the cannibalistic soldier, Yasuda, in Ichikawa Kon’s film Nobi (Fires on the Plain, 1959). Uno

Jūkichi (1914–1988) fashioned his stage name from Chinese characters from the names

of the novelists Nakano Shigeharu and Suzuki Miekichi and became an active member

in the prewar proletarian theater movement. His postwar career was largely associated

with People’s Art Troupe (Gekidan Mingei), punctuated by his performances in such

unforgettable cinematic roles as a shady financier and political operative in Yamamoto

Satsuo’s dark political drama Kinkanshoku (1975). Mori Masayuki (1911–1973), son of

the novelist Arishima Takeo and perhaps best known in the West for his role as the illfated samurai Takehiro in Kurosawa Akira’s Rashōmon (1950), was one of the most

prominent and acclaimed actors in Japanese cinema during the 1950s and 1960s.

6. With a screenplay by Shindō Kaneto and music by Kinoshita Chūji, the fi lm

has sometimes been compared to Kurosawa Akira’s Drunken Angel (Yoidore tenshi,

1948) in terms of their respective depiction of the changing postwar milieu. Besides

Yamaguchi and Mori, the fi lm also stars many Mingei Geijutsu stage actors, including Takizawa Osamu playing a yakuza boss and Uno Jūkichi in his role as a newspaperman.

7. During the Occupation period, the Civil Information and Education Section (CIE) of the General Headquarters (GHQ) apparently encouraged the making of

so-called “kissing fi lms” (seppun eiga) as “a symbol of moral liberation.” The first

kissing scenes in Japanese fi lms were reportedly seen in Twenty-Year-Old Youth

(Hatachi no seishun) and A Certain Night’s Kiss (Aru yo no seppun), both released in

May 1946. See Hirano Kyoko, “The Occupation and Japanese Cinema,” p. 144.

8. Established in 1919 and generally known as Kinejun, the magazine was first

concerned with fi lm criticism of non-Japanese fi lms before branching out into Japanese productions in its annual selection of the ten best fi lms for each category. The

best Japanese fi lm in 1948, the year The Shining Day of My Life was screened, was

Kurosawa Akira’s The Drunken Angel.

Notes to Pages 262–266

339

9. Taniguchi was also a co-scriptwriter. The fi lm was remade by Nikkatsu in

1965 under the direction of Suzuki Seijun with Nogawa Yumiko playing the lead female role.

10. Kinema Junpō picked Ozu Yasujirō’s Late Autumn (Banshun) as the best

Japanese fi lm for the year 1949.

11. With lyrics written in memory of Marcel Cerdan, Piaf first performed the

song at the Versailles in September 1949, a version of which can be seen at http://www

.youtube.com/watch?v=1gTGmbA40ZQ. Reinvented in Japan as “Ai no sanka” with

Iwatani Tokiko’s new passionate lyrics, the song has achieved continuing popularity

since the early 1950s, with performers ranging from Koshiji Fubuki, Kishi Yōko, Fuse

Akira, and Iwasaki Hiromi to a considerably different 2010 interpretation by Utada

Hikaru.

12. Yamaguchi’s original text gives a memorable Japanese rendition of the

frogs’ par ticu lar condition—“frog tempura.”

13. His own colorful concoctions notwithstanding, biographical evidence shows

that Yul Brynner was born in Vladivostok as Yuli Borisovich Bryner and that he spent

time with his mother and sister in Harbin, not Beijing, before the family moved to

Paris. See Rock Brynner’s account of his family’s extraordinary multi-generational saga,

Empire and Odyssey: The Brynners in Far East Russia and Beyond (Hanover, NH: Steerforth, 2006).

14. Yukawa Hideki (1907–1981), a professor of theoretical physics at Kyoto University known for his study of elementary particles and his theory of mesons. In 1949,

he became the first Japanese winner of the Nobel Prize.

15. Ishigaki Eitarō (1893–1958), a Western-style painter known for his Marxist

leanings, his participation in Katayama Sen’s socialist group among Japanese expatriates in the United States, and his critique of Japanese militarism. Karen Boone,

Stacie Diedrichsen, and BreAnn Fosse’s “Ayako Ishigaki” (December 20, 2006), a

short but informative article on the remarkable career of Ishigaki Ayako, produced

for Voices for the Gaps at the University of Minnesota and containing useful bibliographical information, can be found online at http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages

/ishigakiAyako.php.

16. First established in 1948 by Sawada Miki (1901–1980), the Elizabeth Sanders

Home in Ōiso, Kanagawa Prefecture, was often credited as the fi rst orphanage in

Japan that cared for mixed-race babies born of Japanese women and American soldiers. See a description of the orphanage and Japanese racial attitudes regarding such

babies in Yukiko Koshiro, Trans-Pacific Racisms and the U.S. Occupation of Japan

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 163–168. For Buck’s work on behalf

of disadvantaged children and her life story, see Peter Conn, Pearl S. Buck: A Cultural

Biography (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

17. Inspired by Joaquin Miller and others, Noguchi Yonejirō (or Yone Noguchi, 1875–1947) established his literary fame on the West Coast of the United States

during the late 1890s before gaining recognition in New York and London in the

1900s. A modernist poet, he was perhaps best known for his 1909 poetry collection

340

Notes to Pages 267–281

The Pilgrimage along with his novel The American Diary of a Japanese Girl (1902), even

though his critical fame witnessed much fluctuation over time. A professor of English literature at Keiō University starting in 1905, he published his much admired

Japanese language poetry collection Nijūkokusekisha no shi in 1921.

18. An image inspired by “Mura no kajiya” (The Village Blacksmith), an early

Taishō song for children.

19. After their marriage in 1943, Chaplin and Oona alone produced eight children. He had a total of eleven—or twelve—depending in one case on the contested

identity of the father.

20. The theme music, written by Chaplin himself, famously earned the 1972

Oscar for “Best Original Dramatic Score.”

21. The broad artistic range of Kitaōji Rosanjin (1883–1959) included calligraphy,

seal engraving, and Nihon-ga (traditional Japanese-style painting) before he branched

out to the study, styling, and production of cooking utensils and food containers. Inspired especially by Momoyama-era aesthetics, his imaginative passions in ceramic

production were often mentioned along with his well-deserved reputation as a culinary connoisseur.

22. A twenty-kilometer river flowing through the city of Ise in eastern Mie

Prefecture.

23. Tokugawa Musei (1894–1971), one of the most prominent fi lm interpreters

(katsudō benshi) during the age of the silent fi lm in Japan before becoming a pioneer

comic-chat artist (mandanka), film actor, and innovative radio storyteller of such classics as Miyamoto Musashi and The Monkey Goes West.

24. It needs to be clarified that what Joseph McCarthy headed was the Senate

Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) in 1953–1954, not the House UnAmerican Activities Committee.

25. Yamaguchi’s responses to such charges were given in smaller print in parentheses in the original text.

26. For a brief description of the Canon Unit, see Eiji Takemae, The Allied Occupation of Japan (New York: Continuum, 2003), p. 165.

27. To help lubricate the sale of its own Lockheed Tristar 1011s over its rivals,

the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and the Boeing-747, officials of Lockheed, a U.S. aerospace company, proceeded to bribe officials in the highest levels of the Japanese government, including the office of Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei and All Nippon Airways personnel, with the connivance of the right-wing underworld figure Kodama

Yoshio. Ex–Prime Minister Tanaka, along with high-ranking government officials

involved with this incident, were arrested in 1976 in one of the most publicized bribery scandals in postwar Japan.

28. A review in the New York Times (January 30, 1952) describes Yamaguchi

as “pretty and doll-like” while noting the “credibility and polish” she gives to the

heroine’s role and her “impeccable English.” It concludes, “The trials of ‘Japa nese

War Bride,’ as set down in Catherine Turney’s script, have the impact of a twice-told

tale.”

Notes to Pages 281–285

341

29. The rest of Kipling’s refrain in his “The Ballad of East and West” reads “But

there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, / When two strong men

stand face to face, / tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!”

30. Noguchi died in December 1988 at the age of eighty-four, about a year and

a half after the publication of Yamaguchi’s autobiography. For two studies of this

prominent figure in twentieth-century American art and landscape architecture, see

Masayo Duus, The Life of Isamu Noguchi: Journey Without Borders, trans. Peter

Duus (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), and Dore Ashton, Noguchi

East and West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

31. Yamaguchi and Ōtaka Hiroshi were married in Rangoon, Myanmar. Hiroshi came from a family of diplomats; his father, Masajirō, served as a diplomat in

Belgium, Harbin, Tianjin, Germany, and Austria before becoming Consul General in

Qingdao in 1937. Hiroshi’s two younger brothers were also diplomats; Shō was Japanese Ambassador to Paraguay and Czechoslovakia, and Ichirō was Ambassador to

Finland. Hiroshi himself served as the Japanese Minister to Belgium and as its Ambassador to Sri Lanka (1983–1987) and Myanmar (1987–1990). He died in 2001.

32. Incidentally, sanji no anata is also another name for the coral flower (hazeran), which is said to bloom at three in the afternoon. The Fuji Televison show ran

from April 1969 to March 1974.

33. The Red Army member Yamaguchi interviewed in 1973 was Shigenobu Fusako. Arrested in Osaka in 2000, Shigenobu received her final verdict of a twenty-year

prison term from the Supreme Court in 2010.

34. Japanese Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei visited the People’s Republic of

China from September 25 to September 30, 1972, at the invitation of Premier Zhou

Enlai. The Joint Communiqué of the Government of Japan and the Government of

the People’s Republic of China was formally signed on September 29, not September

25 as stated in the original.