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Best known for the role of Johnny
Yuma from the Rebel TV show and astronaut
Glenn from Invasion
of Astro-Monster (1965), Nick Adams
is one of the better known Toho actors of
the Showa era to American fans. Adams' first
role in a Toho film was that of Doctor James
Bowen in Frankenstein
vs. Baragon (1965). Adams could hardly
speak Japanese, so, like other Caucasian actors
of his time, his lines were dubbed over in
the Japanese print of the film; furthermore,
this would also happen in his later two Toho
films. His next movie was Invasion
of Astro-Monster (1965), followed
by The Killing Bottle (1967), which
was part of the International Secret Police
"series". Coincidentally, Adams
starred alongside actress Kumi
Mizuno in all three films, which caused
rumors about an affair between the two to
blossom. Whether these rumors are true or
not is up for debate, but Mizuno later admitted
that Adams had actually proposed to her, while
he was staying in Japan, but she turned him
down as she already had a fiancé. If
there was more to the story than that, one
may never know, but unfortunately by the time
he got back to the states it had already severed
his marriage with actress Carol Nugent. A
few random pieces of trivia about Nick Adams
is that he was good friends with James Dean,
and that he received a supporting actor Oscar
nomination for his role in Twilight of
Honor, which he campaigned for feverishly
and lost. Unfortunately for fans, Adams died
in 1968 from a drug overdose.
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