Tsuru Aoki

Tsuru Aoki
Portrait in a newspaper, c. 1916
Born	(1892-09-09)September 9, 1892 Tokyo, Empire of Japan
Died	October 18, 1961(1961-10-18) (aged 69) Tokyo, Japan
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1913–1924, 1960
Spouse	Sessue Hayakawa ​ (m. 1914)​
Signature

Tsuru Aoki (青木 鶴, Aoki Tsuru; September 9, 1892 – October 18, 1961) was a Japanese stage and screen actress whose career was most prolific in the United States during the silent film era of the 1910s through the 1920s. Aoki may have been the first Asian actress to garner top billing in American motion pictures.

Life and career

Born in Tokyo, Aoki came to California in 1899 with her uncle, Otojirō Kawakami, his geisha wife, Kawakami Sadayakko, and Otojirō's troupe of actors. At their first stop in San Francisco, Tsuru performed with the troupe and assisted Sadayakko at a Palace Hotel tea ceremony where attendees raved over her "diminutive daintiness." But when the troupe ran into severe financial difficulties, Otojirō made arrangements to have Tsuru adopted by Toshio Aoki, a sketch artist for a local newspaper. Tsuru Aoki started taking lessons in ballet dance in New York City, when she went along with her uncle Toshio, who was hired by David Belasco for The Darling of the Gods. After Toshio's death a reporter looked after Aoki. Aoki began her acting career after returning to Los Angeles and performing in stage productions in the city's Japanese Theatre where she was noticed by film producer Thomas Ince who placed the young actress under contract. She was also responsible for recruiting Japanese actors for Imperial Japanese Company, a subsidiary of New York Motion Picture Corporation.

Aoki came to be one of the earliest professional Japanese film actresses within the film industry. She made her film debut in the Majestic Film Company release The Oath of Tsuru San in 1913 opposite actor William Garwood. Her follow-up film was the 1914 Ince production, O Mimi San, which starred the American child actress Mildred Harris and a young Sessue Hayakawa, with whom Aoki had acted onstage at the Japanese Theatre the previous year. The couple began a romantic relationship that culminated in their marriage on May 1, 1914, weeks before the release of their critically acclaimed and publicly successful film The Wrath of the Gods – a melodrama about an interracial romance between a man portrayed by Caucasian actor/ director Frank Borzage and an Asian woman portrayed by Aoki. The film also starred Sessue Hayakawa and featured actress Gladys Brockwell. Hayakawa and Aoki eventually made more than 20 films together throughout the 1910s and 1920s.

Aoki, c. 1915

A few scenes of Aoki dancing and acting in the 1919 film The Dragon Painter

One of Aoki's most recalled films of the silent period is the 1919 William Worthington-directed The Dragon Painter, based on the novel of the same title by Sidney McCall, in which Aoki starred as a young woman who convinces an isolated, mentally deranged artist named Tatsu (portrayed by Hayakawa) to come down from the mountains so that she may civilize him and he may further his artistic abilities. Other notable films of the period were The Typhoon (1914), The Vigil (1914), The Geisha (1914), The Chinatown Mystery (1915), His Birthright (1918), and The Breath of the Gods (1920).

Throughout the 1910s, Aoki appeared in approximately 40 films, often in leading-lady roles which was a first for an Asian actress. Some of her co-stars of the era included such notable names as Marin Sais, Frank Borzage, Gladys Brockwell, Mildred Harris, Jack Holt, Jane Wolfe, Dagmar Godowsky, Vola Vale, Florence Vidor, Earle Foxe, and Walter Long. After a series of moderately successful Ince-produced two-reel serials, Aoki's career in the United States began to falter (while her husband's career began to build momentum), and the couple travelled to France in 1923 and filmed the popular Édouard-Émile Violet-directed drama La Bataille. After returning to America, however, Aoki made only three more films before retiring from the screen to raise her and Hayakawa's three children. Her last silent screen performance was the 1924 release The Danger Line. Aoki returned to the screen in 1960 (her first sound film) to appear with her husband in the drama Hell to Eternity.

Death

Tsuru Aoki died in Tokyo, Japan, on October 18, 1961, of acute peritonitis at the age of 69.

Filmography

Title	Year	Role	Notes	Ref
The Oath of Tsuru San	1913	Tsuru San	Short Lost film
O Mimi San	1914	O Mimi San
The Courtship of O San		O San	Short Lost film
The Geisha		Myo
Love's Sacrifice		Little Faun	Lost film
The Wrath of the Gods		Toya San
A Tragedy of the Orient		Kissmoia	Short Lost film
A Relic of Old Japan		Katuma
Desert Thieves		Owanono
Star of the North		Star of the North
The Curse of Caste		Kissmoia
The Village 'Neath the Sea		Little Fawn
The Death Mask		Princess Nona	Short
The Typhoon		N/A
Nipped		San Toy Nakado	Short Lost film
The Vigil		Mira
Mother of the Shadows		Laughing Moon
The Last of the Line		Girl at Riverside	Short
The Famine	1915	Misao	Short Lost film
The Chinatown Mystery		Woo
The Beckoning Flame		Janira
Alien Souls	1916	Yuri Chan	Lost film
The Honorable Friend		Toki-Ye
The Soul of Kura San		Kura-San
Each to His Kind	1917	Princess Nada
The Call of the East		O'Mitsu – Arai's Sister
The Curse of Iku	1918	Omi San
The Bravest Way		Sat-u
His Birthright		Saki San	Incomplete film
A Heart in Pawn	1919	Sada	Lost film
The Courageous Coward		Rei Oaki
The Gray Horizon		O Haru San
The Dragon Painter		Ume-Ko
Bonds of Honor		Toku-ko	Lost film
Locked Lips	1920	Lotus Blossom
A Tokyo Siren		Asuti Hishuri
The Breath of the Gods		Yuki Onda
Screen Snapshots	1920–1921	Herself
Black Roses	1921	Blossom	Lost film
Five Days to Live	1922	Ko Ai	Lost film
Night Life in Hollywood		Herself	Incomplete film
The Battle	1923	La Marquise Yorisaka	Lost film
The Danger Line	1924	Marquise Yorisaka
The Great Prince Shan		Nita
Sen Yan's Devotion		Sen Yan's Wife
Hell to Eternity	1960	Mother Une
Decasia	2002	Geisha	Archive footage

Bibliography

• The Americanization of Tsuru Aoki: Orientalism, Melodrama, Star Image, and the New Woman by Sara Ross. Duke University Press, 2005. Camera Obscura 20 (3 60):129-157; doi:10.1215/02705346-20-3_60-129.
• Ross, Sara (2005). "The Americanization of Tsuru Aoki: Orientalism, Melodrama, Star Image, and the New Woman". In Catherine Russell (ed.). Camera Obscura 60: New Women of the Silent Screen: China, Japan, Hollywood. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. pp. 128–157. ISBN 978-0-8223-6624-9.

Further reading

• Miyao, Daisuke (2007). Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational Stardom. Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-3969-4. OCLC 470908395.

External links

• Tsuru Aoki at IMDb
• Tsuru Aoki at Women Film Pioneers Project
• Silent Era People
• New York Times movies