Yujiro Ishihara

YUJIRO ISHIHARA d1987. Japanese actor and singer born in Kobe. His elder brother was Shintaro Ishihara, author, politician and the Governor of Tokyo between 1999 and 2012. Yujiro's film debut was the 1956 film "Season of the Sun" based on a novel written by his brother. At the 1958 Blue Ribbons Awards, he won the prize for best new actor for the 1957 films Washi to Taka and Man Who Causes a Storm. He would go on to become one of the representative stars of the Showa Era with his twin acting and singing career, but his life was one made harder by illness and injury. In 1960 he married actress Mie Kitahara, his co-star in a number of films beginning in 1956 with Crazed Fruit. He was beloved by many fans as a representative youth star in the films of postwar Japan and subsequently as a macho movie hero. Yujiro Ishihara was called a Japanese Elvis Presley and his films and music are still followed by lovers of the Showa Period. He was extravagantly mourned following his early death from liver cancer in Tokyo aged just 52 on July 17th 1987