Sessue Hayakawa heart throb

Until recently, I had never heard of Sessue Hayakawa, although I have must have watched him as Colonel Saito in David Lean’s ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ which, in the England of my youth, played on TV screens most Christmases, though I frequently confuse that film with Nagisa Ōshima’s ‘Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’ (1983).

From that youth I only remember Asian characters, not Asian actors. The ‘Chinese’ detective Charlie Chan was, incidentally, written by the non-Asian Earl Derr Biggers for a series of ‘Mystery' novels. The character of Charlie Chan was occasionally played on screen by nine different actors over the years, these include George Kuwa (Keichii Kuwahara) in a 1926 serial, Kamiyama Sojin in a 1928 film, E. L. Park in a 1929 film, then Warner Oland in 16 films, 1931-37; Sidney Toler, in 22 films, 1938-47; Roland Winters in six films, 1948-52, and none of those actors were Chinese, although the early actors, George Kuwa and Sōjin Kamiyama, were Japanese. In 1981, the British actor of Russian descent Peter Ustinov (Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov) played the lead in Clive Donner’s ‘Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen’.

Then there was the Chinese character Fu Manchu in some 18 books written by another non-Asian writer, the British Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward, better known as Sax Rohmer. The character Fu Manchu continued after Rohmer’s death in 1959, and his total appearances are 25 to date.

In films, the dastardly evil criminal genius Fu Manchu had been played by Harry Agar(1924) Warner Oland (1929 - 1931), Boris Karloff (1932), Lou Marcelle (1939–1940), Henry Brandon (1940), John Carradine (1952), Glen Gordon (1956), Christopher Lee (1965 - 1969), Peter Sellers (1980) and Nicolas Cage (2007), and none of those actors were Asian.

All that was to change for me when that Hong Kong legend, Bruce Lee, came on the Kung Fu film scene during the 1970s. I was quickly to learn that not only did Hong Kong have its own films, but so did China. China’s first film being ‘Dingjun Mountain’ (1905) and Hong Kong’s ‘Zhuangzi Tests His Wife’ in 1913, though there is much debate about which really was first China, or Hong Kong.

The Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa didn’t get to play either Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu, but between 1914–1966 he did act in 80 feature films (including ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’, 1957). 

Kintaro Hayakawa (later known as Sessue, and as Kinbo by his friends) was born into a Japanese samurai family, on the 10th of June 1890. He lived in Nanaura township, Boso Peninsular, Honshu Island, Japan, with his father Yoichiro Hayakawa, the Governor of Chiba Prefecture, his mother Kane and four elder siblings.

As a young man Kintaro Hayakawa was fit and skilled in ‘Kendo’ and ‘Judo’, and longed to be in the Japanese navy like his father had been, but mishap and illness prevented that. Hayakawa felt disgrace (renshi-shin) that he had failed his warrior family and, to atone, he attempted hari-kari (Japanese suicide). Miraculously he survived the sword cuts to eventually embark on a journey to San Francisco, America, in 1909, aged 19. Crossing the United States from the West to the East, then to North, Hayakawa became an undergraduate in the University of Chicago then, in 1913, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science.

Intending to return to Japan, for a political career, Hayakawa’s attention was soon taken by amateur dramatics in a small Japanese theatre in Los Angeles, where he was awaiting the boat to return home. After being bitten by the acting bug, he soon changed his name from Kintaro, which he deemed unsuitable for an acting career, to ‘Sessue’, which means snow in Japanese, as he originated from Japan’s main island harbouring the famous snow-capped volcano Mount Fuji. 

Sessue Hayakawa acted in black and white silent films at the beginning of his film acting career. He was seen by the great film producer Thomas H. Ince in Hayakawa’s own production of the play ‘Typhoon’, (made famous by the great Laurence Irving in the Haymarket, London. 1912), Ince soon persuaded Hayakawa to follow him and starred him in his production of the play with Reginald Barker directing. In that film, Hayakawa was supported by fellow Japanese countrymen and women Tsuru Aoki, Henry Kotani and Thomas Kurihara (1914), the latter two formed part of a Japanese actors support group in the US, until returning to Japan in 1920 to be leaders of cinema there.

Hayakawa’s smouldering good looks soon had the ladies swooning. His career was built, not just on good acting, but on his oriental ‘bad boy’ appeal to women. He was undoubtedly a precursor to the matinee idol Rudolf Valentino, and had quickly became cinema’s hottest property. At the height of his career Hayakawa was reputed to be earning over 2 million dollars a year, the equivalent to 28 million dollars in modern terms.

In Kalton C. Lahue’s book ‘Gentlemen to the Rescue’ it’s indicated that…

“He owned a greystone castle at the corner of Franklin and Argyle in Hollywood (since replaced by a motel), where lavish entertainment in the early twenties was almost continuous—weekly luncheons were held for 150, buffet suppers for 900 with three different orchestras playing, and sit-down dinners hosted for 250 guests. Seven servants ran the place while Sessue and his wife, Tsuru Aoki (also a screen star) worked hard and played hard. Charles Ray with his solid gold doorknobs had nothing on the most cunning Oriental of the screen—Hayakawa owned a gold-plated Pierce-Arrow complete with liveried footman…”

A slew of best selling films, including ‘Typhoon’ and ‘The Cheat’ (directed by Cecil B. DeMille, 1915), helped Hayakawa make a name which was in every way equal to Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks. However, in the 1930s, Japan went from being friend of the United Staes of America to being an enemy. It became harder for Japanese actors to exist in US cinema. 

During the Second World War, Hayakawa was in France, fighting with the Resistance against the invading German army. He was rediscovered there by Humphrey Bogart's production team and was offered a role in the film ‘Tokyo Joe’ (1949), and later ‘Three Came Home’ (1950).

As well as acting, Hayakawa wrote several plays, painted watercolours, performed martial arts, wrote ‘Zen Showed me the Way’ (his autobiography, 1960), and in 1961 became a Zen master as well as a private acting coach.

Other film roles followed, up to and including ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ in which Hyakawa was nominated for ‘best supporting actor’ in the 1958 Academy Awards. He died in 1973.