Biography
Whenever asked to name his favorite actors, Japanese filmmaker
Akira Kurosawa would cite, with reservations, the unpredictable
Toshiro Mifune--then would lavish unqualified praise upon Takashi Shimura. After a long stage career, Shimura made his first film in 1935. Eight years later, he worked for Kurosawa for the first time in
Sanshiro Sugata (1943), going on to appear in virtually all of the director's films until 1965. Shimura was seen as the firewood peddler in
Rashomon (1950), the dying civil-servant protagonist in
Ikiru (1952), samurai leader Kambei in
Seven Samurai (1954), the old general in
The Hidden Fortress (1957), and in equally weighty roles in
Throne of Blood (1957),
The Bad Sleep Well (1960),
Yojimbo (1961) and
Red Beard (1965). Curiously, Shimura was never under contract to Kurosawa; instead, the actor was a "hired hand" at Japan's Toho Studios, accepting whatever role he was ordered to play. This explains why, in the midst of so many Kurosawa classics, Takashi Shimura was just as frequently seen in Japanese horror pictures, most famously as the kindly Dr. Yamana in
Godzilla (1954). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide