Takakura Ken’s ‘Loneliness and Suffering Insights from a Close Friend, 10 Years On

“I used to boast, ‘Actually, I’m really good at talking. I can match even Tetsuko Kuroyanagi.'”

 

This testimony comes from Mr. Tak (Tack) Abe (71), who served as the representative of Kurosawa Enterprises USA, the management company of director Akira Kurosawa, in America. He supported Takakura for over 30 years as a private manager mainly responsible for entertainment.

Ten years after the passing of the great actor, on February 16th, Tak spoke to FRIDAY during an interview, saying, “I want to preserve his true face while my memory is still fresh.”

According to Tak, Takakura used to follow a cycle of finishing filming and then taking a long stay overseas to relax. That was the only place he felt relieved from the burden of being a famous actor.

“When he entered the United States, he switched to being Gouichi Oda (his real name). When he got drunk and became talkative, he always talked about dirty jokes (laughs). Even though my wife and I were drinking together with him, he casually talked about sneaking into a temple with his male friends in high school and masturbating together at midnight. But strangely, when Takakura-san talked, it never became vulgar.”

There was a contrast between the cheerful Gouichi Oda and the reserved Takakura Ken. It’s said that he sometimes showed distress at the gap between the image the public expected and his true self.

“He deeply respected veteran comedians like Frankie Sakai and Hisaya Morishige. Perhaps he was studying comedy expression. Sometimes he would imitate Morishige-san. It was impressive when he said with a lonely expression, ‘I actually want to do comedy.'”