was a Japanese film

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a Character (arts), 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 ...

and singer whose career spanned five decades.

Career

Born in

Nagano Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,052,493 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture to the north, Gunma Prefecture to the ...

, Hara made her motion picture debut in 1926 at

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 ...

when she was still in her early teens. She easily made the transition to adult roles and even to sound film with her good voice. In the 1930s she released her own records and starred in musicals like ''

Singing Lovebirds is a 1939 Japanese film directed by Masahiro Makino. It is a musical comedy. Fulfilling his reputation as a fast worker, Makino made the film in only two weeks when an opening was created in the production schedule of another film, ''Yaji Kita D� ...

''. She also appeared in serious dramas such as

Shirō Toyoda was a Japanese film director and screenwriter who directed over 60 films during his career spanning 50 years. Career Born in Kyoto, Toyoda moved to Tokyo after finishing high school and studied scriptwriting under the pioneering film director ...

's ''

Young People Youth is the time of life when one is young. The word, youth, can also mean the time between childhood and adulthood ( maturity), but it can also refer to one's peak, in terms of health or the period of life known as being a young adult. You ...

'' or

Arnold Fanck Arnold Fanck (6 March 1889 – 28 September 1974) was a German film director and pioneer of the mountain film genre. He is best known for the extraordinary alpine footage he captured in such films as '' The Holy Mountain'' (1926), '' The White He ...

's ''

Die Tochter des Samurai ''The Daughter of the Samurai'' (german: Die Tochter des Samurai, Japanese: ) is a 1937 German-Japanese drama film directed by Arnold Fanck and Mansaku Itami, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Starring Setsuko Hara, Ruth Eweler and Sessue H ...

''. She moved into by-roles in the postwar, but continued acting until the 1960s, appearing in a total of over 180 films. She died of old age on 18 November 2004 at the age of 91. She was married to the sound recording engineer Ken'ichi Kagara.

Selected filmography

* ''

The Daughter of the Samurai ''The Daughter of the Samurai'' (german: Die Tochter des Samurai, Japanese: ) is a 1937 German-Japanese drama film directed by Arnold Fanck and Mansaku Itami, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Starring Setsuko Hara, Ruth Eweler and Sessue Ha ...

'' (1937) * ''

'' (若い人) (1937) * ''

'' (鴛鴦歌合戦 Oshidori utagassen) (1939) * ''

Hōrō no utahime is a 1950 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Tetsuo Ichikawa. Cast * Hibari Misora * Kyōji Sugi Kyōji (written: , , or , and alternatively romanised Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a ...

'' (放浪の歌姫) (1950) * ''

The Life of Oharu is a 1952 Japanese historical fiction film directed by Kenji Mizoguchi from a screenplay by Yoshikata Yoda. It stars Kinuyo Tanaka as Oharu, a one-time concubine of a ''daimyō'' (and mother of a later ''daimyō'') who struggles to escape the sti ...

'' (西鶴一代女 Saikaku Ichidai Onna) (1952)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ichikawa, Haruyo 1913 births 2004 deaths Japanese film actresses Japanese silent film actresses 20th-century Japanese actresses People from Nagano Prefecture Japanese child actresses Musicians from Nagano Prefecture 20th-century Japanese women singers 20th-century Japanese singers