Haruo nakajima biography books

While I was debating on Tuesday whether to focus on writing about the Blu-ray release of Shin Godzilla or completing the next John Carpenter series installment, The Thing, the news hit of the death of one of the last surviving participants of the 1954 Godzilla, Haruo Nakajima, from pneumonia at age eighty-eight. It was a painful blow: that Nakajima was still out there and alive was a reassurance to any Godzilla fan, because he actually was Godzilla — the first performer inside the monster costume, back in the original Godzilla, and the one who stayed with the part the longest, playing the monster until near the close of the original Showa Era. He suited up as Godzilla in twelve films from 1954 to 1972, a record that’s unlikely ever to be beat now that even Japanese Godzilla films have switched to using CGI rather than the old fashioned suits.

We talk about how Japanese giant monster (kaiju) films are done with “man-in-a-suit” special effects, but we often don’t understand what that implies. Since we’re once again deep in the “Does Andy Serkis deserves an Oscar nomination for a performance-capture role?” debate that comes after the release of each of the new Planet of the Apes films, it’s appropriate to remember the great performances from the suitmation actors who long preceded CGI-assisted characters.

And among suitmation performers, Nakajima was one of the finest. He infused Godzilla with a personality that emerged stronger and stronger during the period he was inside the costume. Godzilla, arms stretched forward in an attack pose, daring another giant monster to charge with the slight turn of the head — that’s down to Haruo Nakajima. He influenced the way Godzilla is acted as much as Boris Karloff influenced the Frankenstein Monster.

Haruo Nakajima was born in 1929 in Sekita City, Yamagata Prefecture. At age fourteen he trained as a pilot for the Imperial Navy, although World War II ended before his training did. After a brief stint working in h

Haruo Nakajima (中島 春雄,   Nakajima Haruo) was a Japanese actor and stuntman, most famous for playing Godzilla in the character's first 12 films from 1954 to 1972. During that time, he appeared in nearly every one of Toho's science-fiction films, either as a monster, an extra, or both. He retired from suit acting in 1972, several years after the death of Eiji Tsuburaya, who was a close friend of Nakajima as well as the special effects director for most of Toho's kaiju films in the Showa era. In 2010, he published an autobiography titled Monster Life: Haruo Nakajima, the Original Godzilla Actor.^[

The Unauthorized Biography of The Big G.

Bigger, badder, and more durable than Hollywood's greatest action heroes, Godzilla emerged from the mushroom cloud of an H-Bomb test in 1954 to trample Tokyo. More than sixty years later, he reigns as the undisputed king of monsters, with legions of fans spanning several generations and countless international boundaries.

Japan's Favorite Mon-Star is the first authoritative guide to the Godzilla legend published in America. This thoroughly researched volume includes in-depth production details on all 22 Godzilla movies produced by Toho Co. of Japan between 1954 and 1995, including several "unmade" features, plus the 1998 big-budget U.S. Godzilla remake by the producers of Independence Day. The book dispels the myths and illuminates the mysteries of Japan's enigmatic mon-star, and is loaded with background information, trivia, and interviews with the people who created Godzilla -- then and now.

Japanese actor

Haruo Nakajima (Japanese: 中島 春雄, Hepburn: Nakajima Haruo, January 1, 1929 – August 7, 2017) was a Japanese actor and stuntman. A pioneer of suit acting, he is best known for playing Godzilla in 12 consecutive films, starting from the original Godzilla (1954) until Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972). Nakajima also played various other kaiju in Toho's tokusatsu films, including: Rodan (1956), Mothra (1961) and The War of the Gargantuas (1966) and also appeared in a minor role in Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954).

Career

Nakajima was born in the city of Sakata in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan, on January 1, 1929.

His first credited role in a motion picture was in the 1952 film Sword for Hire. He began his career as a stunt actor in samurai films and he acted in a small role in the 1954 film Seven Samurai, portraying a bandit slain by master swordsman Kyūzo (Seiji Miyaguchi).

He was considered by many to be the best suit actor in the long history of the Godzilla franchise. At the time, Toho's special effects director, Eiji Tsuburaya considered him completely invaluable, and he was employed to essay the roles of most of the kaiju (Japanese monsters) during his career as a suit actor.

Before shooting began for the first Godzilla movie, in 1954, Nakajima said he spent a week at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo, where he studied the motion of elephants and bears. He said he threw a piece of bread at the bears to see how they moved to catch it. He also studied the heavy, ponderou