Miiko Taka

Miiko Shikata was born in Seattle, Washington, on January 24, 1925, to Issei parents Masaji and Tsugi Shikata. Her older brother, Masahiro, was born in 1923. The family later moved to Los Angeles, and the children largely grew up in the "Uptown" Japanese American community west of downtown (the neighborhood is now part of Koreatown). Taking the Western name "Betty" (or sometimes "Bette"), Shikata attended public schools as well as a nearby Japanese language school and attended the St. Mary's Episcopal Church. She also took dance lessons and performed locally with Dave King-Mae Murray dancers.

As a teenager, she was a member of the Belle-rineers, one of many Nisei girls clubs in Los Angeles. According to the 1940 Census, the Shikatas lived at 1017 Kenmore Avenue, and the elder Shikatas ran a fruit market, a common occupation for Issei and Nisei in Los Angeles. ^[1]

As with all other West Coast Japanese Americans, the Shikatas were forcibly removed from their home and sent to concentration camps. Their initial destination was the Santa Anita Assembly Center , where they likely arrived with a mass of others from west of downtown Los Angeles between April 28 and May 1, 1942. After nearly six months there, they were transferred to the Gila River , Arizona, concentration camp, arriving on October 18. The Shikatas were held in Block 32 of the Butte camp, the larger of the two sub-camps that made up Gila River. Betty attended Butte High School and was one of seven to graduate as part of the Winter class in February 1944. All of the Shikatas eventually resettled in Chicago , with Betty leaving on September 28, 1944. Less than a month later, she married Dale Ishimoto, a Nisei originally from Santa Maria, California, who had also been incarcerated at Gila River. Ishimoto had enlisted in the army six months prior and would go on to serve in M Company of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team . He returned to Chicago after his discharge and ran dry cleaning businesses there. The couple had two children, a boy and girl. The Ishimotos eventually moved to Los Angeles in 1955, where Dale pursued an acting career. ^[2]

In 1956, Warner Brothers announced plans to make a movie version of James Michener's best-selling novel Sayonara with Producer William Goetz and Director Joshua Logan. The plot of the novel involved a pair of doomed interracial romances between American GIs and Japanese women. While Marlon Brando was cast as the male lead by the fall, the filmmakers conducted a worldwide search for the female lead, including putting out announcements in Japanese American newspapers. "Nisei girls interested in a theatrical career should contact Solly Biano (sic) at Warners or [Goetz's Tokyo representative Arthur] Miyazawa who will be in So. Calif. until the end of this month," read such a notice in the Rafu Shimpo on November 21, 1956. About a month later, the studio announced the casting of Miiko Taka—Shikata's new stage moniker—in the role, along with a part-true, part embellished back story. Said to be twenty-four years old—some eight years younger than her actual age—she had supposedly been discovered while dancing at a Nisei Week performance by a Warner's talent scout and persuaded her to audition. Surprisingly, she had no previous acting experience—when she was discovered, Taka was a clerk at a travel agency making $60 a week. That she was married and the mother of two children was not part of the story. The studio had considered various Japanese actresses, but could not find one with the necessary English language ability with the exception of Shirley Yamaguchi, who was unavailable. Audrey Hepburn also turned down the role. ^[3]

Filming for Sayonara largely took place in various parts of Japan in the first two months of 1957. Taka played Hana-ogi, the lead performer at a Japanese theater company who is courted by Brando's Ace Gruver, an American Air Force pilot who initially is prejudiced towards the Japanese. A second couple, played by Red Buttons and Miyoshi Umeki, challenges Gruver's racism, leading him to court Hana-ogi. In a plot element added to the movie that was not in Michener's book, Gruver's ex-fiance, a white woman played by Patricia Owens, falls for a kabuki actor named Nakamura played by Mexican American actor Ricardo Montalban in "yellowface." The filmmakers also changed the ending of the movie; whereas in the book the lead couple goes their separate ways, the movie version ends with them intending to marry.

After finishing up filming in Hollywood, Taka embarked on a punishing schedule of publicity for the film that included a "Takathon" in September that saw her take press calls from around the world over a twenty-four hour period, a forty-city U.S. tour in the fall of 1957, and a tour of Europe from January through March of 1958. ^[4]

Sayonara premiered in New York on December 5, 1957, and went into general release on December 28. A critical and commercial success—it was the third highest grossing movie released in 1957—it was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (for Brando), winning four, including Best Supporting Actor and Actress for Buttons and Umeki. While noting her lack of experience and backstory, Taka received generally positive notices from both mainstream and Japanese American critics. The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther called her a "a flute-like beauty" who presents "a really lovely, serene and soothing impulse," Variety wrote that "she's also a distinctive personality and her contribution rates high," and Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times called her "... amazingly attractive... a genuinely arresting presence through her striking ability and costuming in the film." In the Denver Post , Larry Tajiri wrote that she "does splendidly... [and] brings sincerity to her role and does not betray the fact that the performance is her first as an actress anywhere." In the Pacific Citizen , Bill Hosokawa called her "a lovely personality, performing with veteran skill in this her first picture." In the Hawaii Times , James T. Hamada wrote that "she dominates the show, giving an impressive and dignified performance, which is extraordinarily good for a newcomer," adding that Brando "is excellent and yet he's overshadowed by the Los Angeles Nisei girl." She was nonetheless the only one of the four leads who was not nominated for an Academy Award. ^[5]

In one of the many interviews she gave to promote Sayonara , Taka told Bob Thomas "Even if nothing else happened in my career, I would be satisfied," while noting that "there are not many opportunities for Oriental actresses in Hollywood." Those words proved prophetic—though she played various small parts in movies and made many TV guest appearances over the next two decades, no further starring roles would come her way. Her most notable film roles were in Hell to Eternity (1960), the first Hollywood film to depict the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans, and Cry for Happy (1961) in which she played a geisha who counters a U.S. Navy crew in Kyoto. Her many television appearances includes roles in Hawaiian Eye , F.B.I. , I Spy , The Wild, Wild West , and many others. Having appeared with Toshiro Mifune in the 1975 film Paper Tiger , she later served as his interpreter. ^[6]

In the meantime, she and Ishimoto divorced in 1958 after fourteen years of marriage. She married TV news director Lennie Blondheim in 1963. After Blondheim's passing in 2002, she married Reginald Lei Hsu in 2003. ^[7]

Taka was active in the Los Angeles Japanese American community in the decades after her stardom. Given her Nisei Week origin story, she was a frequent presence at Nisei Weeks, serving a judge for queen contests and baby shows and serving as a model in the fashion show. She made many other appearances at other events and was one of the organizers of the L.A. Uptown Reunion in 1995. She spent her last years in Las Vegas before her passing at the age of 97 on January 4, 1923. ^[8]