Tomisaburō Wakayama (若山 富三郎), born Masaru Okumura (奥村 勝), was a Japanese actor best known for playing Ogami Ittō, the scowling ronin warrior in the six Lone Wolf and Cub samurai films.

Biography

Wakayama (his stage name) was born on September 1, 1929, in Fukagawa, a district in Tokyo, Japan. His father was Minoru Okumura (奥村 実), a noted kabuki performer and nagauta singer who went by the stage name Katsutōji Kineya (杵屋 勝東治), and the family as a whole were kabuki performers. He and his younger brother, Shintaro Katsu, followed their father in the theater. Wakayama tired of this; at the age of 13, he began to study judo, eventually achieving the rank of 4th dan black belt in the art. In 1952, as part of the Azuma Kabuki troupe, Wakayama toured the United States of America for nine months. He gave up theater performance completely after his two-year term with the troupe was over. Wakayama taught judo until Toho recruited him as a new martial arts star in their jidaigeki movies, originally using the stage name "Jō Kenzaburō". He prepared for these movies by practicing other disciplines, including kenpō, iaidō, kendo, and bōjutsu. All this helped him for roles (now using the stage name "Wakayama Tomisaburō") in the television series The Mute Samurai, the 1975 television series Shokin Kasegi (The Bounty Hunter), and his most famous film role: Ogami Ittō, the Lone Wolf. Wakayama went on to star in many films, performing in a variety of roles. It has been estimated that he appeared in between 250 and 500 films. His only roles in American movies were as a baseball coach in The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978) and as a yakuza boss, Sugai, in Ridley Scott's Black Rain (1989) that delivers a memorable English monologue that becomes a defining moment for the film, and the film's title. Wakayama died of acute heart failure on April 2, 1992, in a hospital in Kyoto. He was survived by a son, Kiichirō Wakayama (若山 騎一郎) born in 1964, also an actor.

Filmography

Film

Wakayama appeared in the following films, amongst others.

1955–1959

1960-1969

1970–1979

1980–1989

1990

Television