Yoichi Matsue (far left) with Akira Kurosawa (next to him) in the Soviet Union for Dersu Uzala.
Frequent Akira Kurosawa collaborator Yoichi Matsue passed away on March 9 of this year in Hachioji, Tokyo, of pneumonia, his family has announced. He was 88.
Mr. Matsue was born on October 26, 1930, in Ishikawa Prefecture. He joined Toho Studios in 1955 as an actor, appearing as one of the convicts in Godzilla Raids Again (1955).
It was behind the camera, however, that Mr. Matsue would achieve his greatest fame working with Akira Kurosawa -- first as an assistant director on such films as Sanjuro (1962), High and Low (1963), and Red Beard (1965), and later as a producer on Dodeskaden (1970) and Dersu Uzala (1975).
When Dersu Uzala won the Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film in 1976, it was Mr. Matsue who gave the acceptance speech, making him the only actor from a Japanese Godzilla film who's delivered an acceptance speech at the Academy Awards. The video is below:
Through our mutual friend, I contacted Mr. Matsue last year about interviewing him, but unfortunately he declined my proposal.
Rest in peace, Mr. Matsue.
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