Jerry Ito

Gerald Tamekichi “Jerry” Itō (Japanese: ジェリー・伊藤; July 12, 1927 – July 8, 2007) was an American actor, singer, and tarento, who spent most of his professional life in Japan. He was part of a showbusiness family, headed by his father Michio Itō.

Itō was born into a showbusiness family in New York City in 1927. He was the son of Japanese dancer and choreographer Michio Itō and American dancer Hazel Wright. His uncles included playwright and actor Koreya Senda and art director Kisaku Itō, and his cousins included composer Teiji Itō and Olympic judoka Teimoc Johnston-Ono. His paternal grandfather and namesake, Tamekichi Itō, was an architect who designed the Ginza Wako department store.

Itō served in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War, where he was attached to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers in Japan, was a member of the American Theatre Wing. After his discharge, he studied acting at The New School, and appeared in a stage adaptation of All the King's Men. However, he was recalled to service during the Korean War, this time in the Army, where he worked for Special Services. After his second discharge, he joined the Actors Studio.

After appearing in the Broadway play The Teahouse of the August Moon, Itō moved to Japan in the mid-1950s, where he married his wife Wakana Hanayagi. While taking Japanese-language classes, he worked as an English-language dubber for Toho Studios. He was later signed to Toho's stage division, though he was frequently loaned out to other film studios due to the lack of roles for Anglophone stage actors.

He established himself as a gaijin tarento (foreign talent), frequently cast as foreigner character in Japanese films. Among his most internationally-recognized parts were as Clark Nelson, the principal antagonist of the 1961 kaiju film Mothra by Toho. He played Ernest Mason Satow in several Taiga dramas. He also recorded several albums for Toshiba Records and was a frequent guest on talk shows. He also appeared in the stage musical Once Upon a Mattress, and was a spokesmodel for Shiseido. From 1995 to 1997, Itō was a cast member of the NHK educational program Let's Play English.

Itō was married to Wakana Hanayagi (real name: Sakae Itō), a Nihon-buyō dancer who taught at the University of Toronto and Yale University.

After suffering a stroke in 1997, Itō moved to Los Angeles for treatment at UCLA Medical Center's Speech Pathology Clinic, where he was involved with the Japanese Language Scholarship Foundation. He lived there until his death from pneumonia in July 2007, four days before his 80th birthday.