Actress Chikage Awashima dies

Chikage Awashima, an actress known worldwide on her use Yasujiro Ozu along with other best of Japanese cinema's nineteen fifties golden age, died of pancreatic cancer on Thursday in Tokyo, japan. She was 87. Awashima joined working out school from the Takarazaka all-women's theater troupe in 1939. In 1950 she left the troupe for that Shochiku studio, where she made her screen debut that year. Within the nineteen fifties Awashima grew to become a studio stalwart, showing up in an array of roles, though in the western world she's best appreciated because the vivacious, tease friend of lead Setsuko Hara such films as "Early Summer time" (1951) and "SpringtimeInch (1956) or Michiko Kogure in "The Taste of Eco-friendly Tea Over Grain" (1952), simply by Ozu. She later moved towards the Toho studio, where she starred because the level-headed geisha wife of the merchant prince's dilatory boy in Shiro Toyoda's "Meioto Zenzai" (1955) she reprised the role within the 1963 follow-up. She also labored together with her co-star Hisaya Morishige within the popular "Station Front" comedy series, which went for twenty-four episodes from 1958 to 1969. Awashima stored employed in films, TV dramas and stage productions into her 80s. Though noted for her comic talents, she made an appearance in from samurai photos to modern dramas. Her last film role is at Masahiro Kobayashi's 2010 drama "Haru's Journey." Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com