Acting
Jun 16, 1929
Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, USA
James Shigeta
Acting
Biography
James Saburo Shigeta (June 17, 1929 – July 28, 2014) was an American actor, singer, and musician of Japanese descent. He was noted for his roles in The Crimson Kimono (1959), Walk Like a Dragon (1960), Flower Drum Song (1961), Bridge to the Sun (1961), Die Hard (1988), and Mulan (1998). In 1960, he won the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer – Male, along with three other actors. In his early career, Shigeta often played romantic male lead roles, which were almost nonexistent for an actor of Asian descent during his time, making him a trailblazer in Asian American representation in media. The Goldsea Asian-American Daily magazine listed him as one of the "Most Inspiring Asian-Americans Of All Time". Before his Hollywood career he found success as a pop singer and performer abroad, especially in Japan and Australia.
Feature Films (43)
A Japanese Yakuza gangster's deadly existence in his homeland gets him exiled to Los Angeles, where he is taken in by his little brother and his brother's gang.
Brother
High above the city of L.A. a team of terrorists has seized a building, taken hostages, and declared war. One man has manages to escape... An off-duty cop hiding somewhere inside. He's alone, tired... and the only chance anyone has got.
Die Hard
When Imperial China calls one man from every family to defend the empire from invading Huns, a young woman disguises herself as a soldier to take her ailing father’s place. Facing ruthless invaders, brutal training, and the risk of execution if discovered, she must decide who she truly is—and what she’s willing to fight for.
Mulan
A young woman arrives in San Francisco's Chinatown, from Hong Kong, with the intention of marrying a rakish nightclub owner, unaware he is involved with one of his singers.
Flower Drum Song
A prototype enhanced human, on the run from Chinese-hired hit men, hooks up with a dread-locked bystander, and the two of them elude their pursuers narrowly each time.
Drive
Two detectives clash over the hunt for a burlesque dancer’s killer in Los Angeles’ Japanese district.
The Crimson Kimono
When George Tanner does business with high-ranking Yakuza Tono, Tono kidnaps his daughter, and George summons his old friend, private eye Harry Kilmer, to Japan to investigate.
The Yakuza
A sex-addicted woman who finds herself with an unplanned pregnancy and needs to figure out who the baby daddy is.
The People I've Slept With
Project Questor is brainchild of the genius Dr. Vaslovik: he developed plans to build an android super-human. Although he's disappeared and half of his programming tape was erased in the attempt to decode it, his former colleagues continue the project and finally succeed. But Vaslovik seems to have installed a secret program in Questor's brain: He flees and starts to search for Vaslovik. Since half of his knowledge is missing, he needs the help of Jerry Robinson, who's now under suspect of having stolen the android.
The Questor Tapes
Two American POWs break out of a Japanese jungle prison camp with their captors' secret decoding device and try to reach freedom despite being slowed by an opportunistic sea captain, his pretty daughter, and a black marketeer.
Escape to Mindanao
Blacklisted by the major airlines for endlessly chasing female staff, pilot Rick Richards returns to Hawaii to set up a helicopter charter company with his friend Danny. Having a girl on every island is a good way to get business but it becomes clear that romance and flying don't always mix.
Paradise, Hawaiian Style
This documentary covers the story of Chinese-, Japanese-, and Filipino-Americans in Washington state, from their first arrivals, to the discrimination they've faced, to the modern families and communities that thrive today.
Home from the Eastern Sea
Television & Series (53)
An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases.
Murder, She Wrote
A private investigator who works when he wants, lives in a beachfront estate in Hawaii, drives a posh Ferrari, runs up an unlimited tab at a swank bar, and charms attractive women in peril - that's the lifestyle of Thomas Magnum, aka Magnum, P.I.
Magnum, P.I.
Against the rising threat, the Homeland Security Agency has created a highly specialized, elite task force trained and equipped to counter anyone or anything that threatens our nation. The head of this super-secret team is Special Agent John Kilmer. He reports only to the President and has authority to call upon the technical skills, firepower and the specialist agents of the FBI, CIA and NSA.
Threat Matrix
In a war-torn world of elemental magic, a young boy reawakens to undertake a dangerous mystic quest to fulfill his destiny as the Avatar, and bring peace to the world.
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Burke's Law is an American detective series that ran on ABC from 1963 to 1965 and was revived on CBS in the 1990s. The show starred Gene Barry as Amos Burke, millionaire captain of Los Angeles police homicide division, who was chauffeured around to solve crimes in his Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II.
