Toshiro Mifune

Toshiro Mifune walked into a Toho studio hiring call for cameramen, was pushed into the audition by mistake, and became the most recognisable Japanese actor of the century. He was born in Manchuria to Japanese parents running a photography shop, served in the aerial photography unit of the Imperial Army through the war, and had no interest in performing; at the 1946 audition he was told to mime anger, did it with such force that the panel wanted him thrown out, and Kurosawa walked in and saw it. They made sixteen films together, including Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood and Yojimbo, and the partnership defined both careers. He moved with an abruptness other actors could not copy, and Kurosawa said he could express in three feet of film what took another actor ten. They stopped working together after Red Beard in 1965 and never fully explained it. He worked internationally afterwards, in Hell in the Pacific and Shogun, and ran his own production company. He was decorated during the war only for photographic work and disliked talking about the service, having spent much of it preparing photographs of pilots for their families. Kurosawa said Mifune took three feet of film to express what other actors needed ten for. He won the Volpi Cup at Venice twice, for Yojimbo and Red Beard, for which he grew a beard he had to keep for two years while the film overran. His own company produced samurai films and television. Steven Spielberg cast him in 1941, and he turned down the part of Darth Vader s voice and a role in Star Wars.

• Lived: 1920 CE – 1997 CE
• Nationality: Japanese
• Roles: artist