Sesshu Hayakawa is the professional pseudonym of Kintaro Hayakawa, a Japanese actor and youth idol. During the silent film era, he was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Also in the 1910s and 1920s, he became the first actor of Asian descent to become a leading actor in the United States and Europe. His handsome looks and the role of sexual villain made him a favorite among American women in the era of racial discrimination. He was a kind of Hollywood sex symbol, although historians dispute this fact.
Biography
Kintaro Hayakawa was born on June 10, 1886 in the village of Nanaura, which later became part of Chikura City (renamed Minamibuso) in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. From a young age he dreamed of learning English and going abroad. His father was a wealthy man and served as head of the fishermen's union. The Hayakawa family had five brothers and sisters.
At first, Kintaro wanted to become an officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy, but while studying at the Naval Academy in Etajima, he injured his eardrum during a deep dive. Feeling ashamed of not living up to the expectations of his parents, he tried to commit suicide at the age of 18 and inflicted about 30 stab wounds to himself in the stomach, but at the last moment his father saved him.
Career
After Kintaro recovered from the aftermath of a suicide attempt, he left for the United States and studied political economics at the University of Chicago in order to become a banker. Hayakawa University graduated in 1912 and intended to return to Japan.
But shortly before sailing, he discovered the Japanese theater in Little Tokyo (Los Angeles) and became interested in acting. Around the same time, he took on the stage name Sessu, which meant "snowfield" in Japanese.
The cast were so impressed with Hayakawa's performance that they brought producer Thomas Ince to the show. He, in turn, decided to turn the play into a silent film with Hayakawa. Sessu did not want this and asked for a huge fee of $ 500 a week, hoping that Ince would refuse his services. But the producer agreed and Hayakawa stayed on while filming.
The resulting film, The Typhoon (1914), became an instant hit and immediately began filming two more films, Wrath of the Gods (1914) and Sacrifice (1914), starring Hayakawa and his new wife Aoki. In the same 1914, Hayakawa signed a permanent contract with the company now known as Paramount Pictures.
In 1915, with the film "Deception," Sessu's career was made another breakthrough, and by 1919 he had become one of the highest paid stars of his time, receiving $ 3,500 a week and $ 2 million in bonuses from 1918 to 1920.
In 1922, due to growing anti-Japanese sentiment, Hayakawa was forced to leave Hollywood and perform for many years on Broadway, Europe and Japan. He returned to Hollywood only in 1931 with a role in the film "The Dragon's Daughter".
Hayakawa's best-known talkie role was that of Colonel Saito in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
During his acting career, Sesshu Hayakawa starred in over 80 feature films. Three films with his participation ("Deception", "The Dragon Artist" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai") became a national treasure of the United States.
Creation
Miyatake Toko, Hayakawa's personal photographer in early 1900s in Los Angeles, recalled Kintaro's fame as follows: “White women were ready to surrender to a Japanese man … fur coats at his feet."
The second film "Deception" (1915) brought Hayakawa to the pinnacle of his fame. After this role, Sessu not only gained immense success, but also became a romantic idol and a sex symbol for the female audience. Women became his most violent fans, which made him an increasingly popular and highly paid actor. In 1919, he already set his own salary, which reached $ 3,500 a week that year.
In 1917, Hayakawa built himself a castle-style mansion in Hollywood that became a local landmark until it was demolished in 1956.
After his role in the film "Deception" he specialized in filming in romantic dramas, from time to time starring in westerns and action films. In the late 1910s he founded his film company Hawotrh Pictures Corporation with a start-up capital of $ 1 million, which was given to him by his parents, who by that time were already the owners of coal mines in Japan.
By 1920, Hayakawa had starred in 23 films and earned $ 2 million, one of which he returned to his parents. At the head of his own company, Hayakawa was both a producer, a leading actor and a film developer, writing scripts, editing and directing films. Critics frowned upon Hayakawa's striving to bring Zen philosophy into acting and the principle of “no-do”, as opposed to the Hollywood principles of the time.
In 1918, Hayakawa personally selected the American actress Marine Sice, who became his partner in a series of films such as City of Obscure (1918), His Birthright (1918) and Bonds of Honor (1919). After that, Sice was replaced by another actress - Jane Novak.
Hayakawa's fame rivaled that of Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and John Barrymore. He drove a gilded Pierce Arrow car and hosted the most expensive and wildest parties in Hollywood at his mansion castle. Shortly before Prohibition was passed in the United States, he filled his cellars with an enormous amount of alcoholic beverages. Together with his wife, Aoki often traveled to Monaco, played in the Monte Carlo casino.
Hayakawa left Hollywood in 1922 due to increased anti-Japanese sentiment and related business difficulties. For the first time since Sessu came to the United States, he was able to visit Japan. For the next 15 years, he performed regularly in Europe and Japan. In Londoen, he starred in The Grand Prince Shan (1924) and The Story of Su (1924).
In 1925, he wrote a short novel, The Bandit Prince, and turned it into a play. In 1930 he played the main role in the play "Samurai", written especially for him. The premiere of the play was attended by King George V of Great Britain and Queen Mary.
Hayakawa gained wide popularity in France, especially after the successful film Danger Line (1923). The German public sensationally accepted Sessu as an actor, in Russia he was considered a wonderful American actor. In Japan, Hayakawa released a Japanese version of The Three Musketeers in Japanese.
Thus Hayakawa established himself as the first leading Asian actor in American and European cinema, as well as the first non-European to achieve international fame.
Return to the USA
Returning to the United States in 1926, he reappears on Broadway and in vaudeville, opening a Zen temple and study hall in New York. Hayakawa moved on to sound films and the first sound film with his participation was "The Dragon's Daughter" (1931). Despite the fact that his accent was not very good for sound pictures, in 1937 he again starred in the German-Japanese film "Samurai's Daughter" (1937).
In 1940, finding himself in France, Hayakawa was trapped, as he could not leave France due to its occupation by the Germans. During World War II, he had to earn his living by selling his watercolors. This way of life Sessu was forced to maintain until 1950.
In 1949, producer Humphrey Bogart found Hayakawa and offered him a role in Tokyo Joe. In 1950, he starred in Three Came Home, but was forced to return from the United States back to France.
After the film "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957) Hayakawa almost stopped acting, occasionally appearing on TV shows and in supporting roles in films, as well as in the cartoon "The Dreamer" (1966).
After retiring, Hayakawa dedicated the rest of his days to Zen Buddhism, became an ordained Zen master, private teacher of acting, and wrote his autobiography.
Personal life
On May 1, 1914, Hayakawa married actress Tsuru Aoki, who starred in several of his films.
Hayakawa's first son was Alexander Hayes, born in 1929 to the white actress Ruth Noble. Subsequently, Sesshu and Aoki adopted the child and gave him a new name, Yukio. Later Hayakawa and his wife adopted two more girls: Yoshiko and Fujiko. The first later became an actress, the second - a dancer.
Death
Hayakawa retired in 1966. In 1973, he died of cerebral thrombosis, complicated by pneumonia. It happened in Tokyo, but Hayakawa was buried in his homeland, in the Chokeiji Temple in Toyama, Japan. His wife Aoki died in 1961.
