Yūsaku Matsuda

He began acting after graduating from high school, moving through several theatre companies before joining the Bungakuza theatre group at around the same time as Kaori Momoi. His career as a screen actor started in 1973 with a role as a junior police officer in a TV detective drama called Taiyō ni Hoero! He went on to appear in various television series and action films during the seventies. His most remembered role on television was in Tantei Monogatari, in which he starred as an unlikely private detective. In films, he was known for such gun-toting roles as assassin Shōhei Narumi in the Yūgi (Game) series of films, and master criminal Asakura in Resurrection of the Golden Wolf. In the 1980s, desiring to be seen as more than an action star, he moved from action films to a wider range of dramatic roles. In 1985 he took the lead role in the award-winning Sorekara. In 1986, he directed A Homansu, after the scheduled director left due to disagreements. This was the only film he directed. During the eighties, he also appeared in many commercials, such as for Gatsby hair products or Triangle shochu. In addition to acting, from the late seventies to the eighties he toured as a singer, releasing several albums of music. In 1989, although already diagnosed with cancer, he starred as the villain, Sato, in Black Rain. Director Ridley Scott and co-stars Michael Douglas, Andy Garcia, and Kate Capshaw praised his professionalism and performance, despite his suffering. He died shortly afterwards, after making a final appearance in a special television drama with Florence Griffith-Joyner, in which he was supposed to run against her, but was unable to do so because of his illness. After his death, his image continued to be used in commercials, such as a 2000 campaign for Schick razors using his image from the Tantei Monogatari television series. Books, films, television specials, and other products, such as scale models of his most famous characters, continue to appear long after his death. In 1998, a film called Yomigaeru Yūsaku: Tantei Monogatari Tokubetsu-hen was released, containing two episodes of the Tantei Monogatari television series and some additional material. In 2009, his second wife, Miyuki Matsuda, produced a tribute film, Soul Red, including clips from his films and interviews with actors such as Andy Garcia, as well as his two sons. ==Personal life==

Matsuda was born out of wedlock in Shimonoseki, to a Japanese father, a probation officer, whom he never met, and a Zainichi Korean mother, Kaneko Matsuda, originally Kim. He changed his citizenship from Korean to Japanese while he was starring in Taiyō ni Hoero!, with the help of Michiko, whose father was a member of the Liberal Democratic party who was head of the then-Prime Minister's support office. In 1975 he was involved in two fracases, first with two journalists, and then with a student who attacked him with a wooden kendo sword because the student thought he was assaulting a woman. The student ended up in a hospital, and Matsuda received a suspended sentence for assault. This caused a major disruption in his career, with film studios and television companies dropping him. He married Michiko Kumamoto in 1975 and had one daughter. They divorced in 1981 after six years of marriage. In 1983, he married Miyuki Kumagai, with whom he had started a relationship in 1979, when she was 17, when she appeared in the television series Tantei Monogatari. They had three children. Two of the children, Ryuhei and Shota, became actors and daughter Yuki became a singer. ==Death==

In 1988, Matsuda was diagnosed with bladder cancer, before shooting began for Black Rain. Matsuda refused chemotherapy, as he thought it would affect his ability to act in the film. ==In popular culture==

A number of manga and anime characters were inspired by Matsuda. Manga author and artist Tetsuo Hara cited Yūsaku Matsuda as one of the two major influences on the character design of Kenshiro, the protagonist of manga and anime series Fist of the North Star. The other major influence was martial artist Bruce Lee, with Hara combining the appearance and character traits of Lee and Matsuda when he came up with the character design of Kenshiro. In the anime series Cowboy Bebop, protagonist Spike Spiegel's appearance was primarily based on the main protagonist of Tantei Monogatari, portrayed by Matsuda. Spike's voice actor Kōichi Yamadera was a fan of Matsuda, but avoided imitating Matsuda's distinctive manner of speaking, noting that it "wouldn't have sounded right" for Spike. Matsuda also inspired the character Aokiji from the manga series One Piece. In the video game ''Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny'', the hero Jubei Yagyu was modelled after Yūsaku Matsuda. ==Filmography==

Film Television Video games ==References==