was a popular Japanese jazz singer and actress. At the peak of her fame in the immediate post-war era, she was known as the .

Early life and career

Shizuko Kasagi was born on 25 August 1914 in

Ōkawa District, Kagawa was a former district in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, wh ...

, Japan. She originally took as her stage name, but eventually changed the spelling of her name to . Before

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Shizuko was one of the stars of the Japan Girls Opera Company. During the

Occupation of Japan Japan was occupied and administered by the victorious Allies of World War II from the 1945 surrender of the Empire of Japan at the end of the war until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect in 1952. The occupation, led by the United States wi ...

, she became a mega star singing songs influenced by American jazz and boogie woogie. She appeared in the 1948 film ''

Drunken Angel is a 1948 Japanese ''yakuza'' film directed by Akira Kurosawa. It is notable for being the first of sixteen film collaborations between director Kurosawa and actor Toshiro Mifune. Plot Sanada (Takashi Shimura) is an alcoholic doctor (the titu ...

'' directed by

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dyna ...

. In 1955, Shizuko retired from singing and concentrated on her acting career.

Death

Kasagi died from

ovarian cancer Ovarian cancer is a cancerous tumor of an ovary. It may originate from the ovary itself or more commonly from communicating nearby structures such as fallopian tubes or the inner lining of the abdomen. The ovary is made up of three different c ...

on 30 March 1985, aged 70.

Films

* ''

'' (1948) * ''Hateshinaki Jonetsu'' (1949) * '' Ginza Kankan Musume'' (1949) * ''

Endless Desire is a 1958 Japanese black comedy and crime film by Shōhei Imamura. Plot Ten years after the end of the war, a group of ex-soldiers meets to dig up a supply of morphine which had been hidden in an air-raid shelter: Onuma, pharmacist Nakata, prof ...

'' (1958) * ''Sukurappu Shūdan'' (1968) * ''Gendai Yakuza: Shinjuku no Yotamono'' (1970) * ''Zubekō Banchō: Zange no Neuchi mo Nai'' (1971) * ''Kigeki: Onna Ikitemasu'' (1971)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kasagi, Shizuko 1914 births 1985 deaths Japanese women jazz singers Japanese film actresses Actors from Kagawa Prefecture Deaths from ovarian cancer Nippon Columbia artists 20th-century Japanese actresses Deaths from cancer in Japan Musicians from Kagawa Prefecture 20th-century Japanese women singers 20th-century Japanese singers