Takashi Shimura Movies and Career Information

Takashi Shimura (志村 喬, Shimura Takashi, March 12, 1905 – February 11, 1982) was a Japanese actor. He was born in Ikuno, Hyogo, Japan. His debut as actor was the film Akanishi Kakita (Capricious Young Man, 1936) and cast in the Kenji Mizoguchi's film Osaka Elegy (1936). In company with Toshirō Mifune, Shimura is the actor who is most closely associated with Akira Kurosawa. Shimura appeared in 21 of Kurosawa's 30 films. His roles include the doctor in Drunken Angel (1948), the veteran detective in Stray Dog (1949), the flawed lawyer in Scandal (1950), the woodcutter in Rashomon (1950), the mortally ill bureaucrat in Ikiru (1952), the lead samurai Kambei in Seven Samurai (1954). In fact, Kurosawa's cinematic collaboration with Shimura, from 1943 to 1980, started earlier and lasted longer than his work with Mifune (1948-65). Shimura appeared in the director's debut film Sanshiro Sugata (1943), and the last film of Kurosawa's in which he acted was Kagemusha (1980), for which Kurosawa specifically wrote a part for Shimura. However, the scene was cut from the western release, and so many did not know that he had been part of the film. The DVD release of the film by The Criterion