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Yuki Shimoda

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Yuki Shimoda (August 10, 1921 - May 21, 1981) was an American actor best known for his starring role as Ko Wakatsuki in the NBC movie of the week, "Farewell to Manzanar" in 1976. He also co-starred in a 1960s television series, "Johnny Midnight" (39 episodes), with Edmond O'Brien. He was a star of the silver screen, early television and the stage. His Broadway theater stage credits include "Auntie Mame" with Rosalind Russell, nominated for eight Tony Awards and winner of three Tonys, and "Pacific Overtures", a Steven Sondheim Broadway musical directed by Harold Prince nominated for ten Tony Awards.

Early life

Yuki Shimoda was born Yukio Shimoda in Sacramento, California on August 10, 1921.

His father was Chojiro Shimoda, who emigrated from the town of Shimoda in Kumamoto prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Chojiro left Japan in his early teens, because he did not want to be a sweet potato farmer on the family farm and was tired of eating sweet potatoes everyday. Shimoda's mother was Kikuye Nakamura, also from the Kumamoto prefecture. Kikuye was born to an influential and wealthy, noble samurai family whose father was a doctor. She left Japan so that she could have freedom as a modern, Asian American woman in America, and to marry for love rather than marry by arrangement, omiai. Shimoda was the oldest of three children. His two younger brothers were Noboru "Dave" Shimoda, who lived to the age of 82, and James Shimoda, who died as a child of a bacterial infection before the age of antibiotics. Shimoda always had an interest in dancing and acting. As a child he insisted on being called Fred, because he wanted to be like Fred Astaire. In Sacramento he worked in the family businesses, which included a restaurant, pool hall and boarding house. His parents' restaurant employed a Filipino cook and friend named Felix, who was killed in World War II by the Japanese. This hardened his intense feelings of being an American. His parents were hard working, and affluent even during the Great Depression, and Shimoda's father, Chojiro, owned a Cadillac limousine that he bought from the Japanese government in a time when many people still owned horses. As a child Shimoda enjoyed being taken on aimless rides with the family in that big car. Shimoda worked hard in his adolescence to help his parents, but he made time to dance and act. His intense drive and determination helped him overcome what he lacked in natural ability. Once in a sewing class in high school, he clumsily sewed his finger with a sewing machine. He studied ballet, as well as kendo, the Japanese art of fencing, and judo which helped him become more graceful. Shimoda also did ballroom dancing with several women dance partners.

Shimoda, a Nisei (a second generation American of Japanese ancestry), along with over 100,000 other Japanese American Issei, Nisei, Kibei Nisei and Sansei were relocated to one of ten Japanese American internment camps after the entry of the United States into World War II when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 into law. Some Sansei or third generation Americans of Japanese ancestry were also born in the Relocation Centers. His parents, Issei, or first generation immigrants to America from Japan were also incarcerated without a trial and for no just cause. A Kibei Nisei is a Nisei, who was sent back to Japan as a child for education. Shimoda was educated in the United States in an American grammar school and an American high school during the day, and in Japanese language school on weekdays after regular school and on Saturday. Shimoda and Noboru were also Boy Scouts. Shimoda's studies at Sacramento Junior College, now known as Sacramento City College, were interrupted by the relocation. He spent the duration of World War II in the Tule Lake War Relocation Center in northern California. These "relocation centers" amounted to American style concentration camps with barbed wire, barracks and machine-gun turrets pointed toward the internees. Unlike the belief of some people still free outside the barbed wire, Japanese Americans were not put in concentration camps for their own protection. Besides attrition from natural causes, internee mortality resulted from soldiers shooting internees, and poor medical care. Shimoda made the best of this time of incarceration by entertaining his fellow internees with his acting, dancing and singing abilities. Once he dressed like Carmen Miranda complete with fruit on his head to dance and sing to the delight of the camp audience. Seeing his parents lose all their hard-earned possessions and being incarcerated in a concentration camp was particularly hard for a Nisei like Shimoda, because he had been raised as an American.

Shimoda and his brother, Noboru, even tried to volunteer for the United States Army after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by going to the local recruiting ofice. The recruiting officer laughed them out of the office by calling them the enemy. Shimoda was eventually classified 4F or ineligible for the draft due to a congenital heart murmur. As a child his parents were told that he would not live to adulthood due to his bad heart. His brother, Noboru, went on to volunteer and serve with the regular United States Army at the end of World War II during the occupation of Japan after his release from the Tule Lake War Relocation Center, and later fought in the Korean War earning the rank of Master Sergeant. Noboru served with the United States Army Military Intelligence, the Office of Strategic Services or the O.S.S. the predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency or C.I.A. for the Allied Interpretation and Translation Service of the United States Army or ATIS; the United States Army Signal Corps; and the Military Police. Noboru was honorably discharged in 1952 and brought his Japanese war bride, wife, Chieko Furusawa, of Yokohama, back to Chicago, Illinois to become a naturalized American citizen. Noboru picked Chicago, because Shimoda and his parents lived there for awhile after being released from Tule Lake. Shimoda left the concentration camp alone and was one of the first to leave "camp". Evaacuees were not allowed to go back to the west coast at first and Shimoda was informed by officials at Tule Lake that Chicago was receptive to Japanese American resettlers, because Irish American politicians there being victims of discrimination themselves understood the predicament of the evacuees. Many Irish Americans entered into American politics, because the British government would not help the Irish people during the Great Hunger. List of Irish American politicians Shimoda lived in Chicago for several years and graduated with a degree in accounting from Northwestern University. He worked at the University of Chicago and taught a class in the Japanese language. He also studied improvisational acting with the Compass Players, who sprung from the University of Chicago, a precursor of the Second City. He spent many hours at the Buddhist Temple of Chicago, then known as the Uptown Buddhist Church, with his friend, the Reverend Gyomay Kubose, discussing life and his purpose on this earth. He felt his purpose was to hone his acting skills on a daily basis so that his next performance would be the best he could deliver. Like Shimoda learned in the Boy Scouts, he wanted to always "Be Prepared". He felt that by giving his all to what he believed in, which was changing the world for the better through his acting profession, he was not just spinning his wheels here on earth. Many Asian American actors considered him to be an actor's actor. Shimoda never married and did not have any children, but he is survived through his brother, Noboru's, four children: Thomas Edward Shimoda, B.S. (Loyola University of Chicago), B.S.D. (University of Illinois), D.D.S. (University of Illinois), J.D. (DePaul University), a practicing dentist and clinical assistant professor at the University of Illinois, former Assistant State's Attorney of Cook County, Illinois, and a graduate of the Player's Workshop of The Second City; Jean Patricia Shimoda-Phillips, R.N., B.A. "Jeanne" a teacher; Betty Doris Shimoda-Hendricks, A.A. a homemaker; and Alice Mary Shimoda-Tansor, B.S.N. a nurse.

Career

Shimoda's movie credits from the 1960's and 1970's range from B movies as "Seven Women from Hell" with Caesar Romero and Yvonne Craig (Batgirl) to A movies as "Midway (film)" with Charlton Heston, Eddie Albert, Henry Fonda, James Colburn, Glenn Ford, Toshiro Mifune, Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson, Robert Wagner, James Shigeta and NoriShimoda Pat Morita. He also was in the martial arts movie "The Octagon" with Chuck Norris. In the Disney movie "The Last Flight of Noah's Ark" with Elliot Gould and Ricky Schroeder, Shimoda's character was one of two Japanese soldiers on a deserted Pacific island decades after the end of World War II, who do not know the war is over. Walt Disney Pictures allowed more character development of the Japanese soldiers to not only entertain the audience, but to show how the Japanese soldiers and the Americans could work together to get off the island. Shimoda enjoyed meaty roles like this that not only entertained but educated the audience to project a positive message. Shimoda's favorite movie, "Farewell to Manzanar" was later bought by Walt Disney Pictures to televise on the Disney Channel. "Farewell to Manzanar" was a National Broadcasting Company, NBC, television movie that stars an all Japanese American cast and presents the story of the relocation of Japanese Americans into American style concentration camps. Both "Farewell to Manzanar" and "The Last Flight of Noah's Ark" are similar, because they present Japanese and Japanese Americans as real people that we get to know as the movie progresses. Shimoda also acted in "MacArthur" with Gregory Peck and in "The Horizontal Lieutenant" with Jim Hutton, Paula Prentiss, Jim Backus and Miyoshi Umeki. Miyoshi Umeki was the first Asian American actress to win an Academy Award Oscar in the film Sayonara, and she played Mrs. Livingston in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" with Bill Bixby.

Shimoda had numerous television credits as the miniseries "A Town Like Alice" that was broadcast internationally and broadcast in the United States on the Public Broadcasting System's (PBS) "Masterpiece Theater". "A Town Like Alice" was the first non-British production to air in the United States on the "Masterpiece Theater". In the television miniseries, "The Immigrants" Shimoda played the part of a Chinese American immigrant Feng Wo. He guest starred on popular television shows of the sixties and seventies as "Adventures in Paradise", "The Big Valley", "Hawaiian Eye", "The Andy Griffith Show", "McHale's Navy", "Mr. Ed", "Peter Gunn", "Love American Style", "Wonder Woman", "Hawaii Five-O", "Sanford and Son", "M.A.S.H." and "Quincy, M.E.". On "Quincy, M.E.", Shimoda starred as Dr. Hiro, a forensic medical examiner in an episode, "Has Anybody Here Seen Quincy?" that did not include star, Jack Klugman. Shimoda was considered for a spin-off of "Quincy, M.E.", where he would be a coroner like Thomas Noguchi, M.D. the Los Angeles County coroner to many newsworthy deaths.

Shimoda also filled in his time between engagements with television commercial work, such as the Chrysler television commercial of the 1970's where Mr. T (Toyota) and Mr. D (Datsun - Nissan) admire a Dodge Colt and say, "Very nice, Mr. D. I thought it was one of yours, Mr. T." There were also movie roles that got away. Shimoda got the lead role as Inuk in the movie "The Savage Innocents", but was replaced by the Mexican American actor, Anthony Quinn. At the time, Shimoda was told that the reason he was fired as the leading man in "The Savage Innocents" was because he was not realistic in the part of an Eskimo, and that the part must be played by an Eskimo, but the discrimination that he fought against during his career was more likely the reason. It was too great a financial risk to have a Japanese American male actor take the lead role in the 1961 movie. World War II was too fresh in many people's minds and many people still did not differentiate the difference between the former Japanese enemy and patriotic American citizens of Japanese ancestry. The United States of America was not yet ready for another Sessue Hayakawa, a Hollywood leading man of silent films from 1914 into the talking movie era of the 1920's and the 1930's. Sessue Hayakawa turned down the movie, "The Sheik", which launched Rudolf Valentino's career. Shimoda like Sessue Hayakawa later in his career took roles as the Japanese enemy. Shimoda preferred to act as the honorable Japanese soldier or sailor like Dr. Matsumo in "Seven Women from Hell". Dr. Matsumo helped the seven American women escape from a Japanese prison camp, but was shot in the back by the bad Japanese soldiers and fell face forward into the mud at the end of the movie. Shimoda played the schlock Japanese villain roles too, but was happy to be choosier later in his career and avoid stereotypical roles; for roles that portrayed the Japanese people and Asian people as humans with human frailities and human strengths.

Shimoda's Broadway career started when he moved to New York from Chicago to get more roles as an actor and dancer on stage. At first he worked as a waiter during the day and as a dancer at night. He found it difficult to find continual work as a dancer. He did find a job coaching caucasian actors to act as more realistic "orientals" in the 1950's, but ultimately was hired as one of the first Asian American actors on Broadway. From 1953 to 1956 Shimoda acted in the "Teahouse of the August Moon". Shimoda got his big break when he landed the part of Ito in the Broadway hit "Auntie Mame". From 1956 to 1958 he stared opposite Rosalind Russell. After the play finished on Broadway, he moved to Los Angeles to do the 1958 Hollywood movie version to recreate his starring role. His income from his acting career plus the knowledge he gained from an accounting degree he earned from Northwestern University allowed him to live a comfortable lifestyle. Some joked that Shimoda, being Japanese, probably had a caucasian gardener, when many in southern California had a Japanese gardener, but in actuality he enjoyed working in his own garden. Others say that he was short-tempered, because of his fustration at not becoming a household name. He finally felt he made it when his name was on a "TV Guide" cross-word puzzle. In fact, he was an out-going, kind person with many friends both in the Business, and many friends not in the Hollywood crowd. If you were his friend, you were his friend for life. He was also a dog lover, who enjoyed driving his favorite dog, a collie named Saigon, in his convertible 1962 British Sunbeam Alpine sportscar made by the Sunbeam Car Company with his Steve McQueen sunglasses around the Hollywood Hills. He devoted his free time to help young actors in the East West Players, a Los Angeles based Asian American theatre group, and in turn East West Players helped him to hone his own skills.

Death

Yuki Shimoda's ashes were originally in the Little Tokyo district, J-Town, of Los Angeles at the Nishihongwanji Buddhist Temple, but have since been moved to Sacramento, California; so, he could rest together with his family Chojiro, Kikuye, Noboru and James in their hometown. He died in Los Angeles of colon cancer that metastasized to his liver on May 21, 1981. He quit smoking cigarettes, and quit the social drinking of alcohol in his later years. A thirty minute documentary film of his life was made and released in 1985 by Visual Communications (VC) of Los Angeles entitled Yuki Shimoda: Asian American Actor. It includes clips of an interview with him before his passing. He died at the age of fifty-nine.

Films and television programs

Films

Television

See also

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