Japanese actor Haruo Nakajima, the man who dressed in a rubber suit to play the original Godzilla in 1954, helping to make the Japanese monster an iconic symbol of the nuclear era, has died at the age of 88.
The news was announced by Japanese film company Toho on Tuesday, and according to Nakajima's daughter Sonoe Nakajima, he had been hospitalized since last month, and died of pneumonia on Monday.
In the original movie, directed by Ishiro Honda with an unforgettable score by Akira Ifukube, Godzilla surfaces from the Pacific Ocean suddenly, a mutation as a result of nuclear testing in the area. The film thus became one of Japan's most successful cultural exports.
Haruo Nakajima, who dressed in a rubber suit to play the original Godzilla. /Reuters Photo
Nakajima's original Godzilla suit was said to weigh 100 kilograms, and was so hard to breathe in that an oxygen tube was even attached.
The Toho classic, which went on to become a mega-series and inspired Hollywood spinoffs, struck a chord with postwar Japan, the only nation in the world to suffer atomic bombing, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the closing days of World War II.
Nakajima played the monster in a dozen films in total, running through to 1972. Some fans prefer Nakajima's version over Hollywood depictions which they say make the fire-breathing lizard an evil-looking animal.
Haruo Nakajima speaks during an interview at his home in Sagamihara, near Tokyo. /AP Photo
In an interview with the Associated Press in 2014, Nakajima said he invented the character from scratch, and developed it by going to a zoo to study how elephants and bears moved. He said it was important to show the pathos of the creature, which could only smash everything in its way.
“It’s not some cowboy movie,” he said.
Godzilla /Douban.com
Although recent Godzilla films use computer graphics, the latest Japanese Godzilla remake, released in 2016, went back to using a human actor, Mansai Nomura, a specialist in the traditional theater of Kyogen. His movements were duplicated on the screen through “motion capture” technology.
“I am the original, the real thing,” Nakajima said in 2014. “My Godzilla was the best.”
A funeral is to be held for family and close friends.
(Source: Reuters, AP)