Toshiro Mifune was a Japanese actor and producer.
37 Facts About Toshiro Mifune
2.
Toshiro Mifune portrayed Miyamoto Musashi in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy and one earlier Inagaki film, Lord Toranaga in the NBC television miniseries Shogun, and Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in three different films.
3.
Toshiro Mifune was born on April 1,1920, in Seito, Japanese-occupied Shandong, the eldest son of Tokuzo and Sen Mifune.
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Toshiro Mifune's father Tokuzo was a trade merchant and photographer who ran a photography business in Qingdao and Yingkou, and was originally the son of a medical doctor from Kawauchi, Akita Prefecture.
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Toshiro Mifune grew up with his parents and two younger siblings in Dalian, Fengtian from the age of 4 to 19.
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Toshiro Mifune was accepted, along with 48 others, and allowed to take a screen test for Kajiro Yamamoto.
7.
Yamamoto took a liking to Toshiro Mifune, recommending him to director Senkichi Taniguchi.
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Toshiro Mifune first encountered director Akira Kurosawa when Toho Studios, the largest film production company in Japan, was conducting a massive talent search, during which hundreds of aspiring actors auditioned before a team of judges.
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Toshiro Mifune's imposing bearing, acting range, facility with foreign languages and lengthy partnership with acclaimed director Akira Kurosawa made him the most famous Japanese actor of his time, and easily the best known to Western audiences.
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Toshiro Mifune often portrayed samurai or ronin who were usually coarse and gruff, inverting the popular stereotype of the genteel, clean-cut samurai.
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Toshiro Mifune was known for the effort he put into his performances.
12.
Many Mexicans believed that Toshiro Mifune could have passed for a native of Oaxaca due to his critically acclaimed performance.
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Interestingly, Toshiro Mifune gave a Japanese pistol as a gift to then-Mexican president Adolfo Lopez Mateos when they met in Oaxaca.
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Toshiro Mifune has been credited as originating the "roving warrior" archetype, which he perfected during his collaboration with Kurosawa.
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Toshiro Mifune had a passion for film in his own right and had long wanted to set up a production company, working towards going freelance.
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In 1980, Toshiro Mifune experienced popularity with mainstream American audiences through his role as Lord Toranaga in the television miniseries Shogun.
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In contrast, Toshiro Mifune spoke respectfully of Kurosawa and loyally attended the premiere of Kagemusha.
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Toshiro Mifune turned down an opportunity from United Artists to play the Japanese spy chief Tiger Tanaka in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice.
19.
Toshiro Mifune himself was always professional, memorizing all of his lines and not carrying scripts on set.
20.
Toshiro Mifune was unusually humble for an international star, and was known for treating his costars and crew very generously, throwing lavish catered parties for them and paying for their families to go to onsen resorts.
21.
In 1979, Toshiro Mifune joined the ensemble cast of the Steven Spielberg war comedy 1941 as the commander of a lost Imperial Japanese Navy submarine searching for Hollywood shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack.
22.
Toshiro Mifune received wide acclaim in the West after playing Toranaga in the 1980 TV miniseries Shogun.
23.
Kurosawa criticized Toshiro Mifune's acting in Interview magazine and said that "All the films that I made with Toshiro Mifune, without him, they would not exist".
24.
Toshiro Mifune presented Mifune with the Kawashita award which he himself had won two years prior.
25.
Yoshimine was a Buddhist but since Toshiro Mifune was a Christian, they were married in church as per Christian tradition.
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Toshiro Mifune's daughter Mika was born to his mistress, actress Mika Kitagawa, in 1982.
27.
In 1992, Toshiro Mifune began suffering from a serious unknown health problem.
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Toshiro Mifune retreated from public life and remained largely confined to his home, cared for by his estranged wife Sachiko.
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Toshiro Mifune won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor twice, in 1961 and 1965.
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Toshiro Mifune was awarded the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon in 1986 and the Order of the Sacred Treasure by the Japanese government in 1993.
31.
On November 14,2016, Toshiro Mifune received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in the motion pictures industry, located at 6912 Hollywood Boulevard.
32.
Toshiro Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world.
33.
The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Toshiro Mifune needed only three.
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Toshiro Mifune put forth everything directly and boldly, and his sense of timing was the keenest I had ever seen in a Japanese actor.
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Toshiro Mifune is a human being with seeds of all emotions, desires, and needs within himself.
36.
The 1999 Danish film Toshiro Mifune is named after the actor.
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Toshiro Mifune has won and been nominated for many awards during his acting career, including six Blue Ribbon Awards, three Mainichi Film Awards, three Japan Academy Film Prize nominations, two Kinema Junpo Awards and Venice Film Festival Awards for his work on film.