Sessue Hayakawa
Sessue Hayakawa was a pioneering Japanese actor born on June 10, 1889, in Chiba, Japan. He initially trained for a naval career but shifted to the arts after an injury prevented him from joining the navy. Moving to the United States to study at the University of Chicago, Hayakawa eventually found his calling in theater and film, becoming a prominent silent-film star in the early 20th century. His breakout role came with the film "The Typhoon" (1914), leading to significant success in Hollywood, where he starred in notable films such as "The Cheat" (1915).
Despite his popularity, Hayakawa grew disillusioned with the stereotypical roles available for Asian actors, prompting him to establish his own production company, Haworth Pictures Corporation, in 1918. This venture allowed him to create more nuanced portrayals of Asian characters. Hayakawa’s career faced challenges with the advent of talkies and increased discrimination against Japanese actors, leading him to spend time in Europe and Japan. He experienced a resurgence in Hollywood later in life with his role in "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957), earning an Academy Award nomination and becoming the first male Asian actor to receive this honor. Hayakawa's legacy is significant for breaking barriers for Asian American performers and for his contributions to the evolution of film acting. He passed away on November 23, 1973, in Tokyo, Japan.
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Subject Terms
Sessue Hayakawa
Japanese-born actor
- Pronunciation: SEHS-shew HIYAH-kah-wah
- Born: June 10, 1889
- Birthplace: Minamiboso, Chiba, Japan
- Died: November 23, 1973
- Place of death: Tokyo, Japan
The only Asian American leading man in the history of silent film, Sessue Hayakawa was one of the most recognizable and famous silent-film stars of his generation. His extraordinary talent and business acumen carved a place for Asian American performers in Hollywood, while he fought against stereotyped casting and limitations in roles possible for Asian actors.
Birth name: Hayakawa Kintaro
Area of achievement: Acting, film
Early Life
Sessue Hayakawa was born in Chiba, Japan, on June 10, 1889. His father was the provincial governor, and his mother was from a samurai family. Following in his father’s footsteps, Hayakawa was training for a naval career when a 1906 swimming accident left him with a ruptured eardrum. This injury precluded him from joining the Japanese navy and drove a wedge between Hayakawa and his father. So humiliated by his failure and the embarrassment it brought to his father, Hayakawa attempted suicide but survived.
In 1911, Hayakawa left Japan to study political economics at the University of Chicago. While enrolled at Chicago, Hayakawa was a quarterback on the football team. During a break from school, Hayakawa went to Los Angeles, thinking that he would catch a freighter back home, and discovered the Japanese Playhouse, a theater performing plays in the Japanese language. He was immediately entranced and ended up dropping out of school to join the company, for which he acted and performed technical duties.
While performing in The Typhoon, Hayakawa came to the attention of Thomas Ince, a pioneering film producer, who offered him the lead in the film adaptation of the play. Hayakawa, who was thinking of going back to college at the time, demanded the unheard-of sum of five hundred dollar per week, assuming Ince would refuse. However, Ince agreed, and the motion-picture version of The Typhoon (1914) proved to be a great success, catapulting Hayakawa into silent-film stardom.
Life’s Work
After the success of The Typhoon, Hayakawa starred in two more pictures, working for Ince until he was offered a contract at Famous Players Lasky, later to become Paramount Studios. His first motion picture for Lasky was The Secret Sin (1915), which was followed by The Cheat (1915); both films were directed by filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille.
The Cheat was an enormous hit and is still considered an important movie of the silent-film era. It is the story of an American woman (Fannie Ward) who borrows money from a Burmese ivory trader (Hayakawa) to save her after she embezzles from a charity. Hayakawa’s character was originally intended to be Japanese, but after complaints by the government of Japan, the character was depicted as Burmese. The film showcased Hayakawa’s acting and handsome looks. In the film’s most famous scene, Hayakawa brands Ward as a sign of his domination of her. The film made Hayakawa one of the most bankable Hollywood stars, able to play a range of foreigners and villains.
Becoming disenchanted at being limited to portraying exotic characters and villains, Hayakawa created Haworth Pictures Corporation in 1918 and became his own producer, choosing material that portrayed Asian actors in more sympathetic and diverse roles. Haworth Pictures earned more than $2 million annually under Hayakawa’s control. Often acting with his wife, Tsuru Aoki, and motion picture actor Anna May Wong, Hayakawa went on to star in more than forty films before 1922, making up to $5,000 per week. In 1919, he released The Dragon Painter, a film about an artist and the woman he loves. In this film, Hayakawa’s acting was more lively and naturalistic than ever before, and the film remains an example of excellent silent filmmaking.
In his private life, he was famous for his extravagant life style. Living in a facsimile of a French castle in the middle of Hollywood, Hayakawa threw lavish parties and gambled millions of dollars. However, in the midst of growing anti-Japanese sentiment, Hayakawa disbanded Haworth Pictures in 1992 and left the United States, spending time in Japan and France before returning to New York. He traveled for some years, performing in England and France, and then he went back to Japan until 1933, where he starred in a series of films and stage productions. While overseas, he authored the novel The Bandit Prince (1926), which he later turned into a play.
When Hayakawa returned to Hollywood in 1931, costarring with Wong in Daughter of the Dragon, he found that his accent was too strong for talking pictures and that Japanese actors were facing more open discrimination. Moving to France again in 1937, he found himself trapped by the Nazi occupation of that country and, separated from his family, he made a living by painting watercolors while actively participating in the French Resistance. In 1949, American actor Humphrey Bogart coaxed him out of retirement with a part in Tokyo Joe, reinvigorating Hayakawa’s Hollywood career.
It was not until The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), however, that Hayakawa again reached star status. Playing opposite English actor Alec Guinness, Hayakawa starred as the Japanese commander of a prisoner-of-war camp in Thailand. The conflict between the two men and their goals is at the center of the film’s story. Hayakawa was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor; he was the first male Asian actor to be honored in this way.
After a few more years of playing supporting roles in films and guest-starring on television, Hayakawa returned to his native Japan. There, he turned his talents to becoming a Zen monk and martial artist. He died on November 23, 1973, in Tokyo, Japan, from a cerebral thrombosis.
Significance
Hayakawa was a man of many talents, which he used to pave the way for Asian American success in mainstream America. He was the first actor of Asian descent to achieve leading-man status in Hollywood as well as the first Asian man to be nominated for an Academy Award. His intelligence, good looks, and athleticism allowed him to rise to the heights of film stardom. He fought against the stereotyping of nonwhite performers and brought a grace and naturalism to film acting that helped the transition from the mannered acting of the silent-film era to the more realistic behavior in the talkies. His successful production company helped open the doors to entrepreneurship opportunities for producers of all ethnicities and races.
Bibliography
Brownlow, Kevin. Behind the Mask of Innocence: Sex, Violence, Crime—Films of Social Conscience in the Silent Era. Berkeley: U of California P, 1992. Print. Analyzes issues of race, violence, and other social problems in silent films. Includes discussion of Hayakawa in the chapter on Japanese actors in US films.
Eyman, Scott. Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille. New York: Simon, 2010. Print. A biography of DeMille analyzing his impact on the history of US film, paying close attention to the silent-film period and discussing DeMille’s experiences with Hayakawa.
Miyao, Daisuke. Sessue Hayakawa: Silent Cinema and Transnational Stardom. Durham: Duke UP, 2007. Print. An ambitious analysis of Hayakawa’s stardom and the problems of being Japanese in the early film industry in Hollywood, using English- and Japanese-language documents to examine the worldwide impact of Hayakawa’s success and the issues of race and politics in Hayakawa’s career.