Kumi Mizuno


Kumi Mizuno is a Japanese actress best known for appearing in several Toho kaiju films of the 1960s and early 1970s.

Early life

Mizuno was born Maya Igarashi on 1 January 1937 in Sanjō Niigata prefecture, Japan. She was acquainted with Giant Baba, her junior by one year, who is also from Sanjō. She enrolled and eventually graduated from the acting school of Haiyuza Theater company with Mari Shimizu and began a professional career in film in 1957 in Crazy Society. In 1958 she appeared in Nemuri Kyōshirō: Record of an Outlaw : Demon-blade Hell.

Career

Her most famous roles include Miss Namikawa in Invasion of Astro-Monster, Dr. Sueko Togami in Frankenstein Conquers the World, and the island girl Dayo in Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster. She is also known for her role as Azami in the 1959 epic The Birth of Japan. By the time she started working on A Bridge for Us Alone, her second movie, her name had changed to Kumi Mizuno. Mizuno first worked with director Ishirō Honda in Seniors, Juniors, Co-Workers in 1959. She would later work with Honda in Matango, Frankenstein Conquers the World, Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, Gorath, Invasion of Astro-Monster and The War of the Gargantuas.
In 1991, she played Kanako Yanagawa in Kihachi Okamoto's Rainbow Kids.
Mizuno returned to the kaiju genre for 2002's Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, and again for 2004's Godzilla: Final Wars.

Filmography

Films

Television

  • Segodon, Saigō Takamori's grandmother

Honours

  • Kinuyo Tanaka Award