Takashi Shimura
Takashi Shimura (志 村 乔Japanese, Takashi Shimura, civil :岛 崎 捷尔, Shoji Shimazaki; born March 12, 1905 in Ikuno, † February 11, 1982 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese actor.
Biography
Takashi Shimura had one of his first film roles in Elegy in Naniwa by Kenji Mizoguchi. Famous as he was the actor who most often appears next to Toshirō Mifune in the films of Akira Kurosawa. Among other things, as a leader of a group of samurai in Seven Samurai. The collaboration with Kurosawa lasted from 1943 to 1980 and was longer than that of Mifune and Kurosawa ( 1948-1965 ). The scenes of his recent collaboration with Kurosawa from the film Kagemusha - The Shadow Warrior were excised for Western cinema. They are preserved only in the original.
Outside of this collaboration Takashi Shimura is known to Western audiences through appearances in various Japanese monster movies, including as the scientists Kyohei Yamane in the first two Godzilla movies.
Takashi Shimura died on 11 February 1982 in Tokyo to a lung disease at the age of 76 years.