was a Japanese actor, comedian, singer, and guitarist. He won six awards for acting.Hitoshi Ueki - Awards
IMDB Retrieved June 21, 2008 His film credits stretch from 1960 to 1995. Ueki came to fame through the comic jazz-band

The Crazy Cats The were a Japanese jazz band and comedy group popular in film and television, particularly between the 1950s and 1970s. Led by Hajime Hana, the band's other main members were Kei Tani, Hitoshi Ueki, Hiroshi Inuzuka, Senri Sakurai, Shin Yasuda, an ...

led by

Hajime Hana was a Japanese actor. He was the leader of the comic jazz band The Crazy Cats, which featured such talent as Hitoshi Ueki and Kei Tani, and which starred in a series of film comedies (such as the "Irresponsible" (Musekinin) series at Toho) and ...

. His major appearances were in the ''Musekinin Otoko'' film series, the comedy variety show ''Shabondama Holiday'', the prime-time television series ''The Hangman'', and the ten 2-hour television shows in the ''Nagoya Yomeiri Monogatari'' franchise. He appeared in the

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 ...

epic ''

jidaigeki is a genre of film, television, video game, and theatre in Japan. Literally meaning "period dramas", they are most often set during the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1603 to 1868. Some, however, are set much earlier—'' Portrait of H ...

'' film ''

Ran Ran, RaN and ran may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Ran'' (film), a 1985 film directed by Akira Kurosawa * "Ran" (song), a 2013 Japanese song by Luna Sea * '' Ran Online'', a 2004 MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) * ...

'' in 1985, receiving a nomination for the Japan Academy Prize for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, and earned the Japanese Academy,

Kinema Junpo , commonly called , is Japan's oldest film magazine and began publication in July 1919. It was first published three times a month, using the Japanese ''Jun'' (旬) system of dividing months into three parts, but the postwar ''Kinema Junpō'' ha ...

,and

Mainichi The is one of the major newspapers in Japan, published by In addition to the ''Mainichi Shimbun'', which is printed twice a day in several local editions, Mainichi also operates an English language news website called ''The Mainichi'' (prev ...

film awards for best supporting actor for his role as the eccentric grandfather in ''

Big Joys, Small Sorrows is a 1986 Japanese film directed by Keisuke Kinoshita, revisiting his melancholic earlier work, '' Times of Joy and Sorrow'' (1957), of a lighthouse keeper and the transient lifestyle he and his family endure. Shot at 10 different lighthouses, f ...

'' in 1987. On stage, he portrayed Billy Flynn in the musical ''

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

'', voiced the

Roddy McDowall Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall (17 September 1928 – 4 October 1998) was a British actor, photographer and film director. He began his acting career as a child in England, and then in the United States, in ''How Green Was My Valley'' (1 ...

role in the Japanese market release of ''

Planet of the Apes ''Planet of the Apes'' is an American science fiction media franchise consisting of films, books, television series, comics, and other media about a world in which humans and intelligent apes clash for control. The franchise is based on Frenc ...

'', and served as the narrator in the Japanese version of

Tom and Jerry ''Tom and Jerry'' is an American Animated cartoon, animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series c ...

. His hit song with Hana Hajime and the Crazy Cats, ''Sūdara-bushi'', placed in the

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in ...

top ten, and landed him an appearance on the

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

annual music spectacular

Kōhaku Uta Gassen , more commonly known simply as ''Kōhaku'', is an annual New Year's Eve television special produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK. It is broadcast live simultaneously on television and radio, nationally and internationally by the NHK net ...

. Ueki received the Purple Ribbon Medal of Honour in 1993 and the 4th Class Order of the Rising Sun in 1999. Currently, new technology is being used to create a

Vocaloid is a singing voice synthesizer software product. Its signal processing part was developed through a joint research project led by Kenmochi Hideki at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain, in 2000 and was not originally intended to b ...

voicebank using his voice.link
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Discography

Albums

* , 1966 * , 1971 * , 1990 * , 1991 * , 1992 * , 1995

Partial filmography

Films

* ''

Tattoo Ari is a 1982 Japanese film directed by Banmei Takahashi. The film was based on the life of Akiyoshi Umekawa. Cast * Ryudo Uzaki as Akio Takeda * Keiko Sekine as Michiyo * Misako Watanabe as Sadako Takeda * Ayako Ōta (太田あや子) as Miyoko * ...

'' (1982) * '' The Crazy Family'' (1984) * ''

'' (1985) as Nobuhiro Fujimaki * '' Ora Tōkyō sa Iguda'' (1985) * ''

'' (1986) as Kunio Sugimoto * ''

Aitsu ni Koishite is a 1987 Japanese drama film directed by Taku Shinjō, based on the 1985 novel by Yasuhisa Shimazaki. The film is notable for the acting debut of teen singer Chisato Moritaka. ''Aitsu ni Koishite'' was released theatrically on May 30, 1987 as p ...

'' (1987) * '' Maiko Haaaan!!!'' (2007)

Television

* ''

Momotarō-zamurai ''Momotarō-zamurai'' (桃太郎侍) or ''Samurai Momotarō'' is a Japanese novel by Kiichirō Yamate (1899–1978). Published in 1946, the novel centers on an Edo-period ''rōnin'', Shinjirō, the younger twin brother of a ''daimyō'' who was caug ...

'' (1976–77) as Saruno Inosuke

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ueki, Hitoshi 1926 births 2007 deaths Japanese male actors Japanese comedians Japanese jazz guitarists Recipients of the Medal of Honor (Japan) Vocaloid voice providers 20th-century guitarists Recipients of the Medal with Purple Ribbon Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 4th class 20th-century comedians 20th-century Japanese male singers 20th-century Japanese singers Male jazz musicians Crazy Cats members