Celebrity Biographies
Haruo Nakajima
Tim Burton, passionate about Godzilla in his childhood, once declared that he envied the man who put on the suit of the Japanese monster. Haruo Nakajima, the first actor to give him life, and who lived the dream of the author of “Edward Scissorhands” a dozen times, died on August 7, 2017, at the age of 88, as a result of pneumonia. He also played small roles in Akira Kurosawa’s films.
Born on January 1, 1929, in Sakata, the city in Yamagata Prefecture where the Oscar-winning Farewells was filmed . Determined to become an actor, he got a contract with Toho, the most important Japanese production company. He made his debut as an extra, playing a man in a bar, in Akira Kurosawa ‘s Mad Dog , which finally cut the scene, although the most international filmmaker in his country recruited him again as one of the bandits who harassed the inhabitants of a peaceful little town in The Seven Samurai , and as a soldier in The Hidden Fortress .
His fate was sealed with Japan under the terror of the monster , emblematic film of large Japanese monsters, where he was placed for the first time under the bulky costume of Godzilla. He could also be seen briefly in one sequence as an employee at a power plant. Ishiro Honda ‘s film kicked off the fashion for kaiju-eiga , the cinema of family-sized creatures, and Haruo Nakajima would specialize in the technique known as suit-motion . Since there was no budget for the expensive stop-motion sequences, frame-by-frame animation of models, which provided more realism, the filmmakers had to settle for characterized interpreters.
“The clothing weighed more than 100 kilos,” he commented in an interview. “It was made with a concrete preparation, due to the scarcity of lighter materials, such as rubber, after the Second World War.” He meticulously prepared his work, to the point that he would spend hours studying the animals in the Tokyo zoo, and then imitate his movements. He came to be considered the best in his work. He suffered numerous accidents, and in fact was on the verge of dying from burns, electric shocks and above all from the intense heat that he had to endure on each shoot, which caused him to faint numerous times.
He was Godzilla a dozen times until he retired after Galien, the Galaxy Monster Attacks Earth , from 1972. In addition, he put himself in the shoes of other terrifying beings from Toho, such as the protagonist of Mothra , from 1961, King Kong, in King Kong Escapes! , from 1967, Baragon in Frankenstein Conquers the World , from 1965, and Gaira, in War of the Gargantuas , from 1966. In all the shoots he worked as a trainer for those who were going to carry out the same job.
After one last appearance as the prime minister’s driver in The Sinking of Japan , a catastrophic 1973 film, he withdrew completely. He continued to attend the massive conventions of the subgenre, which brought together thousands of fans. In 2010 Yosensha publishing house published “Kaiju jinsei (Monster Life)”, his autobiography. A few months before his death, his wife had also died, with whom he had a daughter, Sonoe Nakajima, who accompanied him on his public appearances.