Tetsuko Kuroyanagi

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Tetsuko Kuroyanagi (born August 9, 1933 in Tokyo) is a Japanese actress, voice actress, tarento, World Wide Fund for Nature advisor, and Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF.

She is well known for her charitable works, and is considered as one of the first Japanese celebrities who achieved international recognition.

In 2006, Donald Richie referred to Kuroyanagi in his book Japanese Portraits: Pictures of Different People as "the most popular and admired woman in Japan."

Early life

Kuroyanagi was born in Tokyo City, Tokyo Prefecture (now Tokyo). Her father was a violinist and a concertmaster. Her nickname as a child was Totto-chan, according to her 1981 Autobiographical memoir.

Education

Kuroyanagi studied at the Tokyo College of Music, majoring in opera, as she intended to become an opera singer. After graduation, however, she was drawn to acting and the television entertainment industry by her joining Tokyo Hoso Gekidan. Subsequently, she became the first Japanese actress who was contracted to Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK).

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Career

After voicing Lady Penelope in the Thunderbirds TV series, Kuroyanagi first became well known in 1975 when she established her afternoon television program Tetsuko's Room (徹子の部屋, Tetsuko no Heya), which was the first talk show on Japanese television. The show was broadcast by the private television channel Television Asahi, and featured Kuroyanagi's discussions with celebrities from various fields, including television, sport and politics. Tetsuko's Room was very successful, and Kuroyanagi started to be referred to as a "phenomenon" in Japan, in contradiction to the image of "servile" and "wifely" women on Japanese television". Statistics show that, by the early 1990s, Kuroyanagi had interviewed over two thousand Japanese and foreign guests. It is acknowledged that her warmness as an interviewer and skilled art of talking is a factor that made the TV program live long. She is also familiar to Japanese audiences with her regular appearance on the television quiz show "World Mysteries".

1981 marked a turning point in her career, as Kuroyanagi published her children book Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window, in which Kuroyanagi wrote about the values of the unconventional education that she received at Tomoe Gakuen elementary school during World War II, and her teacher Sosaku Kobayashi. The book is considered her childhood memoir, and upon release, it became the bestselling book in Japanese history. The book was first translated to English in 1984 by Dorothy Britton, and it was published in more than 30 countries.

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