Sessue Hayakawa

Sessue Hayakawa c. 1918, bust portrait, by Evans, Los Angeles

Birth Name: Kintaro Hayakawa 早川 金太郎

Date of Birth: June 10, 1886

Place of Birth: Minamibōsō, Chiba, Japan

Date of Death: November 23, 1973

Place of Death: Tokyo, Japan

Ethnicity: Japanese

Sessue Hayakawa was a Japanese actor. He was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood during the silent era of the 1910s and 1920s. He is also considered the first actor of Asian descent to find stardom as a leading man in the United States and Europe.

He appeared in in Japanese, American, French, German, and British films.

His father was a provincial governor. Hayakawa studied at the University of Chicago around the early 1910s. He acted at the Japanese theatre in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, and began appearing in Hollywood films in the mid 1910s.

Hayakawa was married to Japanese actress Tsuru Aoki (青木 鶴子 Aoki Tsuruko), until her death. He had a son with actress Ruth Noble, and two children, actress Yoshiko and dancer Fujiko, with Tsuru. Tsuru also adopted his son.

Hayakawa became a Zen Buddhist priest.