Miyoshi Umeki born 8 May 1929

Miyoshi Umeki (May 8, 1929 – August 28, 2007) was a Japanese-American singer and actress. Umeki was a Tony Award- and Golden Globe-nominated actress and the first East Asian-American woman to win an Academy Award for acting. 

Born in Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan, Miyoshi was the youngest of nine children raised within the Umeki family. Though her father, the owner of an iron factory, and mother did not approve of her keen interest in a musical entertainment career, Miyoshi eventually learned to play the piano, mandolin, and harmonica, as well as how to sing. 

After reaching adulthood she became a nightclub singer, touring Japan with her own traveling jazz band from 1950 to 1954 and performing under the stage name of “Nancy Umeki”. Miyoshi made her next career, and intercontinental, move in 1955, when she spent a year as a regular solo performer on Arthur Godfrey and His Friends, an American variety show. It was during this time that she met Josh Logan, who would become the director of Sayonara. Miyoshi also became a naturalized citizen of the USA in 1955, so she could reside in America and allow her talents to flourish fully. She was best known for her Oscar-winning role as Katsumi in the film Sayonara (1957), as well as Mei Li in the Broadway musical and 1961 film Flower Drum Song, and Mrs. Livingston in the television series The Courtship of Eddie's Father. She was a shin Issei, or post-1945 immigrant from Japan.

 She recorded for RCA Victor Japan from 1950 to 1954 and appeared in the film Seishun Jazu Musume. She recorded mostly American jazz standards, which she sang partially in Japanese and partially in English, or solely in either language. Some of the songs she sang during this period were "It Isn't Fair", "Sentimental Me", "My Foolish Heart", "With A Song In My Heart", "Again", "Vaya con Dios", "(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?" and "I'll Walk Alone". She moved to the United States in 1955 and after appearing on the Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts (she was a series regular for one season), she signed with the Mercury Records label and released several singles and two albums. 

Her appearances on the Godfrey program brought her to the attention of director Joshua Logan, who cast her in Sayonara. Umeki won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Sayonara. She was the first Asian performer to win an Academy Award for acting. In 1958, she appeared twice on the variety show The Gisele MacKenzie Show in which she performed "How Deep Is the Ocean". 

In 1958, she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance in the Broadway premiere production of the musical Flower Drum Song, where she played Mei-Li. The show ran for two years. A cover story in Time stated "the warmth of her art works a kind of tranquil magic". Umeki appeared in the film adaptation of the musical. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Flower Drum Song.

                             

Although a guest on many television variety shows, she appeared in only four more movies through 1962, including the film version of Flower Drum Song (1961). The others were Cry for Happy (1961), The Horizontal Lieutenant (1962) and A Girl Named Tamiko (1963). 

From 1969 to 1972, she appeared in The Courtship of Eddie's Father as Mrs. Livingston, the housekeeper, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award after which she retired completely from Hollywood acting. Her last public appearance, in that same year, was for an Oscar Hammerstein II special where she sang the song “I’m Going to Like it Here.” Altogether Miyoshi worked for twenty-four years in non-Hollywood jobs: from 1972 to 1976 she was the co-owner (along with her second husband, Randall Hood) of a company (whose name is not given) that rented out film editing equipment to studios and universities. After Randall Hood’s death on August 18, 1976, Miyoshi sold this company and ran a dance studio for twenty years in Sherman Oaks California. Not once did she ever attempt a comeback during all those years. 

1996 arrived and Miyoshi remained consistent and private. After her retirement, she moved from the mainland U.S.A. to Hawaii. In 2002, still single, Miyoshi moved from Hawaii back to the mainland, to the small city of Licking, Missouri, to be close to her son and two grandchildren. Now, in the twilight of her beautiful life, she continued her private retirement, turning down interviews and living another five years before her eventual sunset.

She died at the age of 78 from cancer on August 28, 2007. 

Her first marriage, to television director Frederick Winfield "Wynn" Opie in 1958, ended in divorce in 1967.The couple had one son—Michael H. Opie, born in 1964. She married Randall Hood in 1968, who adopted her son, changing his name to Michael Randall Hood. 

(Edited from Wikipedia. April magazine & Washington Post)