 |
| Minori Terada in February 2020. Photo by Brett Homenick. |
Actor Minori Terada, a prolific performer whose acting career dates back to 1961 and continued into the current year, passed away on March 14 due to lung cancer, his agency, CES Entertainment, has announced. He was 81.
 |
| Minori Terada in August 2019. Photo by Brett Homenick. |
Born on November 7, 1942, Terada would join the theater company Bungakuza in 1961 and began performing onstage. By the mid-1960s, he started acting in movies, embarking on a decades-long career that saw him collaborate with some of Japan's most talented directors.
Terada stars in Kihachi Okamoto's The Human Bullet (1968) as "Him," but he is also known for his supporting parts in such films as Okamoto's Red Lion (1969), Zatoichi and Yojimbo (1970), Battle of Okinawa (1971), Station (1981), Hayao Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky (1986), Akio Jissoji's Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis (1988), and Ultra Q: The Movie (1990). On TV, he guest-starred in Ultraman (1966-67) episode 14 as the truck driver's assistant.
I was privileged to meet Mr. Terada twice. I remember that he wanted to talk to me about Akira Kurosawa movies, as well as the works of other Japanese directors. He was quite friendly and seemed genuinely interested in knowing my opinions. My second meeting with Terada-san is also notable because it was one of the last ones before the COVID-19 lockdowns started in Japan.
With his passing, Minori Terada leaves behind a body of work that few actors could hope to match. Rest in peace, and thank you very much for the decades of entertainment.
No comments:
Post a Comment