Hideyo Amamoto

Hideyo Amamoto

ACTOR

One of Japan's most distinctive character actors, Eisei Amamoto is one of their cinema's few personalities who is easily recognizable to Western movie buffs. Tall (six feet) and skeletal of build, bony-faced and wild-haired (when not ensconced in a vast silver wig), Amamoto's persona inspired Woody Allen to dub him with an imitation Peter Lorre voice in What's Up Tiger Lily? (1966). He was better served by Paul Frees' menacing tones in King Kong Escapes (Kingukongu no gyakushu, 1967). But neither voice matches Amamoto's own, surprisingly deep and resonant for his scrawny, sunken-chested frame. It might have served him well had he pursued his original career choice: politics. He barely managed to dodge the draft into Japan's Pacific War, through acceptance to Tokyo University, his nation's most prestigious school. He studied law, for he wished to become a diplomat, but he soon grew disillusioned in his studies, his world view darkened by the mire into which his country was plunging thro
  • Where was
    Hideyo Amamoto born?

    Hideyo Amamoto was born in Japan


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