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Tetsuro Tamba |
| Actor |
Date of birth:
July 17th, 1922
Tokyo, Japan |
Date of death:
September 24th,
2006
Tokyo, Japan |
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Biography
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| Best known the world
over for his performance as Tiger Tanaka in
the 007 entry You Only Live Twice and
well known to genre fans as the fire and brimstone
spouting environmentalist Dr. Nishiyama in
Prophecies
of Nostradamus (1974), Tetsuro Tamba
is perhaps one of Japan's very greatest thespians.
Born the son of Emperor Meiji's own physician,
he joined Shintoho in 1951 and began appearing
in films for the studio shortly thereafter
before his contract ran out in 1959, whereupon
he went freelance and began starring in films
for various companies such as Toho and Toei.
Having never refused a role, he's appeared
in everything from disaster films to yakuza
films to samurai films to war films to exploitation
films and has performed in films as acclaimed
as Kwaidan
(1965) and as trashy as the Shintoho production
Female Slave Ship. He was most frequently
cast by director Kinji
Fukasaku, most notably in Fukasaku's anti-war
drama Under
the Flag of the Rising Sun (1972).
Tamba has even appeared in a handful of Hong
Kong productions, including Chang Cheh's The
Water Margin and the infamous kung fu
gore spectacular The Story of Ricky.
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