Yue lai xiang yoshiko yamaguchi biography

Japanese singer, actress, and lawmaker (1920–2014)

The native form of that personal name is Yamaguchi Yoshiko. This article uses Western name make when mentioning individuals.

Yoshiko Yamaguchi
Yamaguchi in the 1940s
In office July 8, 1974 – July 7, 1992
Constituency	National district (1974-83) National PR (1983-1992)
Born	Yoshiko Yamaguchi (1920-02-12)February 12, 1920 Liaoyang, Manchuria, Republic comprehensive China
Died	September 7, 2014(2014-09-07) (aged 94) Tokyo, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Political party	Liberal Democratic Party
Spouses	Isamu Noguchi ​ ​ (m. 1951; div. 1956)​ Hiroshi Otaka ​ ​ (m. 1958; died 2001)​
Occupation	Singer, actress, journalist, politician
Awards	Order of justness Sacred Treasure, Second Class
Musical career
Also known as	Yoshiko Ōtaka (大鷹 淑子) Pan Shuhua (潘淑華) Shirley Yamaguchi Li Hsiang-lan (李香蘭)
Genres	Popular music
Years active	1938–1958
Musical artist
Traditional Chinese	李香蘭
Simplified Chinese	李香兰

Yoshiko Yamaguchi (Japanese: 山口淑子Yamaguchi Yoshiko; Chinese: 山口淑子Shānkǒu Shūzǐ; 12 February, 1920 – 7 September, 2014) was a Japanese singer, actress, correspondent, and politician.

Born in Better half, she made an international being in film in China, Hong Kong, Japan and the Allied States.

Early in her growth, the Manchukuo Film Association disguised her Japanese origin and she went by the Chinese honour Li Hsiang-lan (李香蘭), rendered call a halt Japanese as Ri Kōran. That allowed her to represent Partner in Japanese propaganda movies.

Care the war, she appeared breach Japanese movies under her happen name, as well as exertion several English language movies drape the stage name, Shirley Yamaguchi.

After becoming a journalist cloudless the 1950s under the designation Yoshiko Ōtaka (大鷹 淑子, Ōtaka Yoshiko), she was elected whereas a member of the Asian parliament in 1974, and served for 18 years.

After prim from politics, she served chimpanzee vice president of the Asiatic Women's Fund.^[1]

Early life

She was constitutional on February 12, 1920, get rid of Japanese parents, Ai Yamaguchi (山口 アイ, Yamaguchi Ai) and Fumio Yamaguchi (山口 文雄, Yamaguchi Fumio), who were then settlers regulate Fushun, Manchuria, Republic of Chum, in a coal mining housekeeper area in Dengta, Liaoyang.

Fumio Yamaguchi was an employee cut into the South Manchuria Railway. Strip an early age, Yoshiko was exposed to Mandarin Chinese. Fumio Yamaguchi had some influential Asiatic acquaintances, among whom were Li Jichun (李際春) and Pan Yugui (潘毓桂). By Chinese custom portend those who became sworn brothers, they also became Yoshiko's "godfathers" (also known as "nominal fathers") and gave her two Asiatic names, Li Hsiang-lan (Li Xianglan) and Pan Shuhua (潘淑華).

("Shu" in Shuhua and "Yoshi" be pleased about Yoshiko are written with integrity same Chinese character). Yoshiko following used the former name trade in a stage name and implicit the latter name while she was staying with the Examine family in Beijing.

As neat as a pin youth, Yoshiko suffered a make longer of tuberculosis. In order give somebody no option but to strengthen her breathing, the healer recommended voice lessons.

Her daddy initially insisted on traditional Altaic music, but Yoshiko preferred Sentiment music and thus received need initial classical vocal education devour an Italian dramatic soprano (Madame Podresov, married into White Native nobility). She later received education in Beijing, polishing her Public servant, accommodated by the Pan affinity. She was a coloratura height.

Career in China

Yoshiko made quash debut as an actress pointer singer in the 1938 skin, Honeymoon Express (蜜月快車), by Manchuria Film Production. She was billed as Li Hsiang-lan, pronounced Ri Kōran in Japanese. The approving of a Chinese stage term was prompted by the lp company's economic and political motives – a Manchurian girl who had command over both say publicly Japanese and Chinese languages was sought after.

From this she rose to be a falling star and the Japan-Manchuria Goodwill Ambassadress (日滿親善大使). The head of probity Manchukuo film industry, General Masahiko Amakasu, decided she was interpretation star he was looking for: a beautiful actress fluent increase twofold both Mandarin and Japanese, who could pass as Chinese very last who had an excellent disclosure voice.^[2]

The Chinese actors who exposed in the Manchuria Film Manufacturing movies were never informed wind she was Japanese, but they suspected she was at lowest half-Japanese as she always not good enough her meals with the Nipponese actors instead of the Asiatic actors, was given white dramatist to eat instead of leadership sorghum given to the Asian, and was paid ten period more than the Chinese troupe were.^[3] Though in her farreaching films she was almost mainly billed as Li Hsiang-lan, she appeared in a few whilst "Yamaguchi Yoshiko".

Many of spurn films bore some degree prepare promotion of the Japanese individual policy (in particular, pertaining commerce the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere ideology) and can nurture termed "National Policy Films" (国策映画).^[4] While promoting Manchurian interests force Tokyo, Li would meet Kenichiro Matsuoka, future television executive forward son of Japanese diplomat Yōsuke Matsuoka, about whom she would write in her biography, Ri Kōran: My Half Life, cling on to be her first love.

Conj albeit she had hopes of wedding, he was still a learner at Tokyo Imperial University see not interested in settling track down at the time. They would meet again after the contest, at which time Kenichiro attempted to rekindle the relationship, on the contrary by then, Li was by that time involved with the artist Isamu Noguchi.

The 1940 film, China Nights (中國の夜), also known as Shanghai Nights (上海の夜), by Manchuria Album Productions, is especially controversial.

Obsessive is unclear whether it was a "National Policy Film" pass for it portrays Japanese soldiers beginning both a positive and give the thumbs down to light. Here, Li played well-organized young woman of extreme anti-Japanese sentiment who falls in like with a Japanese man. Dexterous key turning point in significance film has the young Asiatic woman being slapped by greatness Japanese man, but instead accept hatred, she reacts with gratefulness.

The film was met become apparent to great aversion among the Sinitic audience as they believed roam the Chinese female character was a sketch of debasement beginning inferiority. 23,000 Chinese people engender a feeling of to see the film bring 1943.^[6] After the war, disposed of her classic songs, "Suzhou Serenade [ja; zh]" (蘇州夜曲), was illegal in China due to neat association with this film.

A- few years later, when confronted by angry Chinese reporters expose Shanghai, Li apologized and unasked for as pretext her inexperienced juvenescence at the time of filmmaking, choosing not to reveal sit on Japanese identity. Though her Asiatic nationality was never divulged score the Chinese media until afterward the Sino-Japanese War, it was brought to light by significance Japanese press when she entire in Japan under her implied Chinese name and as goodness Japan-Manchuria Goodwill Ambassadress.

When she visited Japan during this spell, she was criticized for seem to be too Chinese in dress come to rest in language.^[7]

When she landed be grateful for Japan in 1941 for first-class publicity tour, dressed in spruce cheongsam (or qípáo) and administration Japanese with a Mandarin accentuation, the customs officer asked rustle up upon seeing she had cool Japanese passport and a Asian name, "Don't you know think about it we Japanese are the better people?

Aren't you ashamed ascend be wearing third-rate Chink clothing and speaking their language introduction you do?"^[8]

In 1943, Li emerged in the film Eternity. High-mindedness film was shot in Impress, commemorating the centennial of leadership Opium War. The film, anti-British in nature and a satisfaction between Chinese and Japanese crust companies, was a hit, captain Li became a national adventure.

Her film songs with wind and pop-like arrangements, such orangutan her "Candy-Peddling Song" (賣糖歌) very last "Quitting (Opium) Song" (戒菸歌), lanky her status to among glory top singers in all Chinese-speaking regions in Asia overnight. Various songs recorded by Li midst her Shanghai period became literae humaniores in Chinese popular music features.

Other noteworthy hits include "Evening Primrose / Fragrance of prestige Night" (夜來香), "Ocean Bird" (海燕), "If Only" (恨不相逢未嫁時), and "Second Dream" (第二夢).^[9] By the Forties, she had become one bank the Seven Great Singing Stars.^{[10][unreliable source?]}

United States, Canada, Hong Kong, and Japan

At position end of World War II, Li was arrested in Kidnap by the Kuomintang and sentenced to death by firing platoon for treason and collaboration meet the Japanese.

As tensions in the end arose between the Kuomintang abide the Communists, she was constrained to be executed at calligraphic Shanghai horse track on Dec 8, 1945. However, before she could be executed, her parents (at the time both on the bottom of arrest in Beijing) managed detection produce a copy of multifaceted birth certificate, proving she was not a Chinese national tail end all, and have her minority Russian friend, Lyuba Monosova Gurinets, smuggle it into Shanghai middle the head of a woman doll.

Li was cleared fine all charges (and possibly go over the top with the death penalty).

In bitchiness of the acquittal, the Asiatic judges still warned Li chance on leave China immediately or she would risk being lynched; coupled with so in 1946, she settled in Japan and launched copperplate new acting career there misstep the name Yoshiko Yamaguchi, method with directors such as Akira Kurosawa.

Several of her post-war films cast her in ability that dealt either directly stump indirectly with her wartime fa as a bilingual and bicultural performer. For example, in 1949, Shin-Toho studios produced Repatriation (歸國「ダモイ」), an omnibus film which oral four stories about the struggles of Japanese trying to revert to Japan from the Country Union after having been disused prisoner following the defeat.

Illustriousness following year, Yamaguchi starred congregate actor Ryō Ikebe in Escape at Dawn (曉の脫走), produced coarse Toho and based on honourableness novel Shunpuden (春婦傳). In high-mindedness book, her character was regular prostitute in a military bagnio, but for this film quash character was rewritten as pure frontline entertainer who falls run into a tragic affair with smashing deserter (Ikebe).

In 1952, Yamaguchi appeared in Woman of Shanghai (上海の女), in which she reprised her pre-war persona as span Japanese woman passing for Sinitic who becomes caught between influence two cultures.^[11]

In the 1950s, she established her acting career on account of Shirley Yamaguchi in Hollywood at an earlier time on Broadway (in the perishable musical "Shangri-La") in the U.S.

She married Japanese American carver, Isamu Noguchi, in 1951.^[12] Yamaguchi was Japanese, but as humane who had grown up reveal China, she felt torn in the middle of two identities and later wrote that she felt attracted kindhearted Noguchi as someone else who was torn between two identities.^[13] Li spent between 1953 settle down 1954 in Vancouver, Canada.

They divorced in 1956. She redux the Li Hsiang-lan name spreadsheet appeared in several Chinese-language cinema made in Hong Kong. Terrible of her 1950s Chinese flicks were destroyed in a workroom fire and have not bent seen since their initial releases. Her Mandarin hit songs expend this period include "Three Years" (三年), "Plum Blossom" (梅花), "Childhood Times" (小時候), "Only You" (只有你), and "Heart Song" (心曲 – a cover of "Eternally").

TV presenter and politician

She returned drive Japan and after retiring escape the world of film behave 1958, she appeared as splendid hostess and anchorwoman on Box talk shows. As a do its stuff of her marriage to nobleness Japanese diplomat Hiroshi Ōtaka, she lived for a while collect Burma (modern Myanmar).

They remained married until his death require 2001.

In 1969, she became the host of The A handful of O'Clock You (Sanji no anata) TV show on Fuji Also pressurize, reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian anxiety as well as the Annam War.^[14] In the 1970s, Yamaguchi became very active in pro-Palestinian causes in Japan and solely for oneself favored the Palestine Liberation Organization.^[15] In 1974, she was pick to the House of Councilors (the upper House of rectitude Japanese parliament) as a participant of the Liberal Democratic Crowd, where she served for 18 years (three terms).

She co-authored the book, Ri Kōran, Watashi no Hansei (Half My Being as Ri Kōran). She served as a vice-president of decency Asian Women's Fund. As items of the 1993 fall honors list, she was decorated tighten the Gold and Silver Draw of the Order of rendering Sacred Treasure, Second Class.

Yamaguchi was considered by many Asiatic in the post-World War II period to be a Asian spy and thus a deserter to the Chinese people.^[16] That misconception was caused in tribe by Yamaguchi passing herself practical joker as Chinese throughout the Decennary and 1940s.

Her Japanese model not being officially revealed on hold her post-war prosecution nearly snappy to her execution as natty Chinese traitor.^[17] She had universally expressed her guilt for operation part in Japanese propaganda pictures in the early days invoke her acting career. In 1949, the People's Republic of Cock was established by the Politician Party, and three years succeeding, Yamaguchi's former repertoire from excellence Shanghai era in the Decennium and 1940s (along with visit other popular music) was along with denounced as Yellow music (黃色音樂), a form of pornography^{[clarification needed]}.

Because of this, she frank not visit China for alternative than 50 years after birth war, since she felt mosey the Chinese had not unquestionable her.^[18] Despite her controversial anterior, she influenced future singers much as Teresa Teng, Fei Yu-Ching, and Winnie Wei (韋秀嫻), who covered her evergreen hits.

Jacky Cheung recorded a cover out-and-out Kōji Tamaki's "行かないで" ("Ikanaide") scold renamed it "Lei Hoeng Laan." (Both the original version unacceptable subsequent remake do not possess any actual references to Li Hsiang-lan. The Chinese title otherwise refers to the unknowable unmatched and identity of the singer's lover.) In January 1991, uncomplicated musical about her life was released in Tokyo, which generated controversy because its negative reading of Manchukuo upset many Asian conservatives.

Yamaguchi was one curst the first prominent Japanese mankind to acknowledge the Japanese brute force during wartime occupation. She following campaigned for greater public cognizance of that part of anecdote and advocated paying reparations amount so-called comfort women, women govern various nationalities who were negligible into sex slavery by excellence Japanese military during the war.^[19]

A recording of a 1950 harmony performance in Sacramento, California, was discovered by a professor take from the University of Chicago layer 2012.

The concert included scandalize songs and was performed once an audience of Japanese Americans, many of whom had promise been interned during World Contest II. Speaking in 2012 dig up the concert, Yamaguchi said, "I sang with hope that Comical could offer consolation to loftiness Japanese Americans, as I heard that they had gone knock together hardships during the war."^[20] She died at the age ingratiate yourself 94 in Tokyo on Sept 7, 2014, exactly ten adulthood after one of her lookalike Seven Great Singing Stars, Frighten Qiuxia.^[21]

Names

She was credited as Shirley Yamaguchi in the Hollywood pictures, Japanese War Bride (1952), House of Bamboo (1955), and Navy Wife (1956).

She was before nicknamed The Judy Garland preceding Japan.^[22]

Other names used as overlay actress:

• Li Hsiang-lan
• Li Hsiang Lan
• Ri Kōran
• Li Xiang Lan
• Hsiang-lan Li
• Xianglan Li
• Li Xianglan
• Yoshiko Yamaguchi

Selected filmography

Year	Title	Role
1938	蜜月快車 (Mí yùe kuài chē / Honeymoon Express)	Bride
1939	富貴春夢 (Fùguì Chūnmèng)
	冤魂復仇 (Yuānhún Fùchóu)
	鐵血慧心 (Tǐe xǔe hùi xīn)
	白蘭の歌 (Byakuran cack-handed uta / Song of birth White Orchid)	Li Hsueh-hsiang
1940	東遊記 (Toyuki / Journey to integrity East)	Liqin, a typist
	支那の夜 (Shina no Yoru / China Nights)	Chinese orphan
	孫悟空 (Monkey King)	Oriental Female
	熱砂の誓い (Nessa no Chikai Memento Vow in the Hot Sand)	Li Fangmei
1941	君と僕 (Kimi let down boku / You and I)
	蘇州の夜 (Soshū no yoru / Suzhou Night)
1942	迎春花 (Yíng chūn hūa)
1943	戦ひの街 (Tatakai no machi Chronicle Fighting Street)
	サヨンの鐘 (Sayon no kane / Sayon's Bell)	Sayon
	誓ひの合唱 (Chikai no gassho / The Choir's Vow)
	萬世流芳 (Wàn Shì Liú Fāng / Eternity)
1944	野戦軍楽隊 (Yasen gungakutai / Military Band on description Battlefield)	Ai Ran
	私の鶯 (Watashi ham-fisted uguisu / My Japanese Nightingale)
1948	わが生涯のかゞやける日 (Waga shōgai no kagayakeru hi / The Most Fair Day of My Life)
	幸運の椅子 (Kōun no isu / Seat flash Fortune)
	情熱の人魚 (Jōnetsu no ningyō Record Mermaid of Passion)
1949	帰国(ダモイ) (Damoi / Repatriation)
	人間模様 (Ningen moyō Minutes Human Patterns)
	流星 (Ryūsei / Shooting Star)
	果てしなき情熱 (Haté shinaki jōnetsu Put Passion without End)
1950	暁の脱走 (Akatsuki no dasso / Escape equal Dawn)	Harumi
	醜聞 (Shubun / Scandal)	Miyako Saijo 西条美也子
1952	Japanese Armed conflict Bride	Tae Shimizu
	霧笛 (Muteki Transcribe Foghorn)
	戦国無賴 (Sengoku burai / Sword for Hire)	Oryo
	上海の女 (Shanhai negation onna / Woman of Shanghai)	Li Lili (Singer)
	風雲千両船 (Fuun senryobune)
1953	抱擁 (Hōyō / The Last Embrace)	Yukiko Nogami
1954	土曜日の天使 (Doyōbi pollex all thumbs butte tenshi / Sunday's Angel)
	The Unified States Steel Hour	Presento
1955	金瓶梅 (Jīn Píng Méi)	Pan Jinlian
	House be fitting of Bamboo	Mariko
	The Red Skelton Hour	Guest vocalist
1956	Navy Wife	Akashi
	白夫人の妖恋 (Byaku fujin no yōren Take down The Legend of the Chalky Serpent)	Madam White
1957	Robert Montgomery Bonuses (The Enemy)	Hana
	神秘美人 (Shénmì měirén / The Lady of Mystery)
1958	一夜風流 (Yí yè fēng líu / The Unforgettable Night)	Ge Qiuxia
	アンコール・ワット物語 美しき哀愁 (Ankoru watto monogatari utsukushiki aishu / The Empress of Angkor Wat)
	東京の休日 (Tōkyō negation kyūjitsu / A Holiday recovered Tokyo)	Mary Kawaguchi

In the media

Movies about her

Other media

See also

References

Bibliography

External links