| Mariko Okada | |
| Birth Date: | 11 January 1933 |
| Birth Place: | Yoyogi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, Japan |
| Nationality: | Japanese |
| Parents: | Tokihiko Okada (father) Sonoko Tazuru (mother) |
| Occupation: | Actress, film producer |
| Yearsactive: | 1951–present |
is a Japanese stage and film actress who starred in films of directors Mikio Naruse, Yasujirō Ozu, Keisuke Kinoshita and others. She was married to film director Yoshishige Yoshida.[1]
Okada was born the daughter of silent film actor Tokihiko Okada (real name Eiichi Takahashi), who died the year following her birth,[2] and raised by her mother's sister in her early childhood. She gave her film debut in Mikio Naruse's 1951 Dancing Girl,[3] for whom she worked again in Husband and Wife, Floating Clouds and Nagareru. Unsatisfied with the roles she was assigned to, she left Toho studios after her contract expired, and signed with Shochiku. In the following years, she starred in Yasujirō Ozu's Late Autumn and An Autumn Afternoon, Keisuke Kinoshita's Spring Dreams and The Scent of Incense, and Heinosuke Gosho's Hunting Rifle.
The 1962 Akitsu Springs was Okada's 100th film[4] and the first under the direction of her future husband Yoshishige Yoshida.[5] Between 1965 and 1971, she starred in all of Yoshida's films, independently produced melodramas narrated in an avant-garde fashion, of which Eros + Massacre was the formally most radical.
In later years, she appeared in films like Juzo Itami's Tampopo and Shinji Aoyama's My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? (2005),[6] her last film role to date.[7] She also regularly performed on stage and on television.
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | Dancing Girl | Shinako | ||
| 1953 | Husband and Wife | Kumiko, Shigekichi's sister | ||
| 1954 | Akemi | |||
| 1955 | Floating Clouds | Sei Mukai | ||
| 1955 | The Lone Journey | Otaka | ||
| 1955 | Akemi | |||
| 1956 | Flowing | Nanako | ||
| 1956 | Akemi | |||
| 1957 | Yagyu Secret Scrolls | Rika | ||
| 1957 | When It Rains, It Pours | Matsuko Abe | ||
| 1960 | Spring Dreams | Chizuko Okudaira | ||
| 1960 | Late Autumn | Yuriko Sasaki | ||
| 1961 | Hunting Rifle | Midori | ||
| 1961 | Enraptured | Senya | ||
| 1962 | An Autumn Afternoon | Akiko Hirayama | ||
| 1962 | Akitsu Springs | Shinko | Also Producer | |
| 1964 | The Scent of Incense | Tomoko | ||
| 1965 | A Story Written with Water | Shizuka, Shizuo's mother | ||
| 1965 | Illusion of Blood | Oiwa | ||
| 1966 | Woman of the Lake | Miyako Mizuki | ||
| 1967 | The Affair | Oriko | ||
| 1968 | Affair in the Snow | Yuriko Anzai | ||
| 1969 | Eros + Massacre | Noe Ito | ||
| 1970 | Heroic Purgatory | Nanako, Rikiya's wife | ||
| 1977 | Proof of the Man | Kyoko Yasugi | ||
| 1978 | The Fall of Ako Castle | Riku | ||
| 1982 | Conquest | Hiroko Tadokoro | ||
| 1985 | Tampopo | "Spaghetti Sensei", the etiquette coach | ||
| 1987 | A Taxing Woman | Mitsuko Sugiura | ||
| 1998 | The Geisha House | Hanaman's owner | ||
| 2002 | Women in the Mirror | Ai Kawase | ||
| 2005 | My God, My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me? | Navi |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 | The Yagyu Conspiracy | Lady Kasuga | ||
| 1985-1986 | Sanada Taiheiki | Yodo-dono |