Miyoshi Umeki, 78, Japanese Pioneer of Stage and Film

Miyoshi Umeki, who died August 28 at 78, was nominated for a Tony Award as Mei-Li the mail order “picture bride” in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Flower Drum Song” (1958). She also won an Oscar for best supporting actress as Red Buttons’s wife Katsumi in the film “Sayonara” (1957).She was later seen on television in the recurring role of a housekeeper, Mrs. Livingston, in “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.”Her Oscar was the first to be won by an Asian.A native of Hokkaido, Umeki was a teenager during World War II. She was first exposed to American music by a group of GIs who befriended her family soon after V-J Day, and she learned the music of Dinah Shore, Peggy Lee, and Doris Day phonetically while listening to Armed Forces Radio.By the time she was in her late teens, she was a sensation on Japanese TV and radio, singing and recording for RCA Japan under the name Nancy Umeki.Brought to America to play the nightclub circuit in 1955, Umeki felt homesick; the dried squid she cooked as comfort food drew protests, but her singing reviews were better. She was booked into shows hosted by Tennessee Ernie Ford and then Arthur Godfrey, where a Warner casting agent saw her and hired her for “Sayonara.”The Japanese actress found herself feted by a nation fascinated by its erstwhile enemy. In 1958, the year “Flower Drum Song” opened on Broadway, “The World of Suzie Wong” was playing across the street. Stage productions of “Rashomon” and “Kataki” opened the next year.Umeki was at first known for her submissive manners and once told a reporter that she thought an American had fallen in love with her because he held her hand to cross the street. She soon became more sophisticated, telling a Time magazine reporter intent on exoticizing her: “Is nice to look at eyes. Get to know people that way.” She gazed out from the magazine’s December 22, 1958, cover.She reprised her “Flower Drum Song” role for the 1961 film version of the musical and that same year appeared in another Hollywood intercultural romance, “Cry for Happy.” But film work dried up for her in the 1960s, and she contented herself with guest-star roles on television shows — for instance as Nami the Geisha in an episode of “Rawhide,” and as a Japanese visitor in a 1964 episode of “Mister Ed” in which the horse joins the Peace Corps.She retired from performing in the early 1970s and for a time ran a business renting editing equipment to film studios.She was married to a producer on the Tennessee Ernie Banks show and later to a documentary producer, Randall Hood. Survivors include a son from the second marriage and two grandchildren.

Miyoshi Umeki, 78, Japanese Pioneer of Stage and Film

Miyoshi Umeki, 78, Japanese Pioneer of Stage and Film

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