Sachiko Murase


Sachiko Murase was a Japanese stage and film actress. She appeared in about 90 films between 1927 and 1991, often under the direction of Hiroshi Shimizu and Keisuke Kinoshita, and received numerous awards for her stage and film performances.

Biography

Sachiko Murase was born Sada Matsui in Honjo Ward, Tokyo. A graduate from Tokyo Prefectural Second Girls' High School, she joined the Tsukiji Shogekijo theatre in 1925. At the age of nineteen she became a stage actress, associated with Japan's leftist avant-garde. Murase gave her film debut in 1927 and entered the Shochiku film studio four years later. Together with her husband Kihachi Kitamura, she formed the Geijutsu Shogekijo theatre in 1937. In 1944, the year following the dissolution of Geijutsu Shogekijo, she was one of the founding members of the Haiyuza Theatre Company together with Koreya Senda, Eijirō Tōno, Chieko Higashiyama, Eitarō Ozawa and others. Since the mid-1950s, she also regularly appeared on television. She was the oldest active actress of Shingeki theatre in her lifetime.

Selected filmography

Awards and honours (selected)