Clyde Kusatsu
Clyde Kusatsu is an American actor. A prolific character actor, he has appeared in over 300 film and television productions since his debut in 1970. He is the Secretary of the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, after previously serving as the first elected President of the SAG-AFTRA Los Angeles Local and was four times elected the National Vice President Los Angeles, from 2013 through 2021.
Early life and education
Kusatsu attended ʻIolani School where he began acting and in Honolulu summer stock. He attended Northwestern University as a theater major, during which time he was the only Asian-American student enrolled at the school. He graduated in 1970, and in 1972 then joined the East West Players, the oldest Asian-American theater company in Los Angeles.Career
After several years of stage acting, Kusatsu got his first TV roles in five episodes of Kung Fu and four episodes of M*A*S*H, in which he played three different roles. Kusatsu later played the recurring role of Rev. Chong on three episodes of All in the Family and appeared as four different characters on Magnum, P.I., including two episodes as HPD Detective Gordon Katsumoto and a guest role as the Vietnamese Colonel who severely wounds Thomas Magnum.Kusatsu has been a regular on several television shows, including the adventure series Bring 'Em Back Alive, and the Hawaii-set medical drama Island Son, playing Dr. Kenji Fushida, the best friend of the main character. His many television movies have included: the CBS Movie of the Week Dr. Strange, in which he played the Marvel Comics character Wong; the film adaptation of Farewell to Manzanar, about Japanese-American internment during World War II; HBO's AIDS docudrama And the Band Played On ; and American Tragedy playing famed O.J. Simpson trial Judge Lance Ito. Kusatsu had recurring roles as Vice Admiral Nakamura on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Principal Shimata in several episodes of the 1990s ABC sitcom Family Matters, and co-starred in Margaret Cho's short-lived ABC series All American Girl, the first Asian-American family sitcom in the U.S., as Cho's character's father.
He has worked with Japanese film icon Toshiro Mifune in Midway, John Frankenheimer's Black Sunday, and The Challenge. Kusatsu had supporting roles in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story, In the Line of Fire, American Pie, Shopgirl, and Sydney Pollack's The Interpreter as Lee Wu, chief of security for the United Nations Headquarters. He had a key supporting role opposite Glenn Close in Bruce Beresford's World War II drama Paradise Road.
He has appeared in several soap operas, including the recurring role of Dr. Dennis Okamura on The Young and the Restless and guest appearances on The Bold and the Beautiful, General Hospital, and Days of Our Lives. Since 2021, he has appeared in a recurring role on Days Of Our Lives, as DiMera Enterprises board member Wei Shin.