was a Japanese film

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

Career

Born in Hiroshima Prefecture, Nakano attended Hōsei University, but left before graduating. When he was playing for the

Nikkatsu is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio, founded in 1912 during the silent film era. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally ...

amateur baseball team, he was scouted as an actor and made his debut in 1925 in ''Daichi wa hohoemu''. While becoming one of Japan's main romantic leads, Nakano moved from Nikkatsu to Teikoku Kinema to

Shinkō Kinema was a Japanese film studio active in the 1930s. Background Shinkō was established in September 1931 out of the remnants of the Teikoku Kinema studio with the help of Shōchiku capital. The historian Jun'ichirō Tanaka writes that the studio w ...

Daiichi Eiga (第一) is a compound (linguistics)#Noun–noun compounds, compound grammatical modifier, modifier phrase of Japanese language, Japanese origin, meaning ''wikt:number one, number one'', or ''wikt:first, first''. In kanji, "dai" ("number") is � ...

and other studios, and starred in films directed by such masters as

Kenji Mizoguchi was a Japanese film director and screenwriter, who directed about one hundred films during his career between 1923 and 1956. His most acclaimed works include ''The Story of the Last Chrysanthemums'' (1939), ''The Life of Oharu'' (1952), ''Uget ...

Tomu Uchida , born Tsunejirō Uchida on 26 April 1898, was a Japanese film director. The stage name "Tomu" translates to “spit out dreams”. Early career Uchida started out at the Taikatsu studio in the early 1920s, but came to prominence at Nikkatsu, ad ...

, Daisuke Itō, and

Tomotaka Tasaka was a Japanese film director. Career Born in Hiroshima Prefecture, he began working at Nikkatsu's Kyoto studio in 1924 and eventually came to prominence for a series of realist, humanist films made at Nikkatsu's Tamagawa studio in the late 193 ...

, among others. In 1941, he formed his own production company, Nakano Eiji Productions, and directed the film ''Shōgun''. After World War II, he ceased appearing in movies until the 1970s, when he appeared in films such as

Kaneto Shindo was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, film producer, and writer, who directed 48 films and wrote scripts for 238. His best known films as a director include '' Children of Hiroshima'', '' The Naked Island'', '' Onibaba'', '' Kuroneko'' an ...

's documentary on Kenji Mizoguchi, '' Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director''.

Selected filmography

*'' Daichi wa hohoemu'' (1925) *''

Orizuru Osen , also titled ''The Downfall of Osen'', is a 1935 Japanese silent film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi starring Isuzu Yamada. It is based on a short story by Kyōka Izumi. Plot While waiting for a delayed train at a train station, Sōkichi Hata, a me ...

'' (1935) *''Shōgun'' (1941) (director) *'' Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director'' (1975)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Nakano, Eiji Japanese male silent film actors 1904 births 1990 deaths People from Kure, Hiroshima 20th-century Japanese male actors