Thane Alexander Camus (; born November 27, 1970) is an American TV personality and actor in Japan.

History

Early life

Camus was born in New York on November 27, 1970. His mother remarried a Japanese manager of a Middle Eastern airline, and the family left the United States when Camus was 6 months old, living in the Bahamas, Greece, Lebanon, and Egypt before settling in Fujisawa around 1976 or 1977. Camus also lived in Singapore for two years from fourth to sixth grade, where he took remedial English classes. Camus was the first male graduate of Saint Maur International School once it became coeducational. He entered

Hofstra University Hofstra University is a Private university, private research university in Hempstead, New York, United States. It originated in 1935 as an extension of New York University and became an independent college in 1939. Comprising ten schools, includ ...

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

, but dropped out before he graduated.

Career in Japan

Shortly after returning from Hofstra in 1991, Camus made his first TV appearance on

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

, helping to present an English educational program. He starred as the alien character "Chanto Seijin" in a popular 1996 television commercial. Starting around this time, Camus was a regular on the

Sanma Akashiya is a Japanese comedian, TV presenter, radio personality and actor most commonly known as Sanma-san. His real name is . His talent agency is Yoshimoto Kogyo and his shishô (master) back when he studied '' rakugo'' is Shōfukutei Matsunosuke. T ...

show ''Sanma's Super Karakuri TV'' for many years, in which he quizzed Japanese passers-by in English and foreigners in Japanese on the streets of Tokyo, and has appeared as a special guest on multiple variety shows. During this phase of his career, Camus was affiliated with R&A Promotion, the talent agency of Motoko Inagawa, which employed many prominent foreign celebrities in Japan. He worked as both a staff "talent" and as a manager, but left the agency in December 2004 and founded his own agency, taking a significant pay cut in the process. R&A then sued Camus, alleging that he breached a 10-year contract signed in 2002. According to journalist Yohei Hoshino, R&A also pressured television networks and advertising agencies to blacklist Camus in the wake of his departure. Camus won the lawsuit at both the District Court and High Court. Since leaving R&A, Camus has focused on drama and narration work as well as

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. As of 2019, Camus is a co-host on ''J-Trip Plan'', a travel show in English on the Japanese national broadcaster

Personal life

His great-uncle was

Albert Camus Albert Camus ( ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, journalist, world federalist, and political activist. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the s ...

. Camus has a younger sister with autism, and serves as a director of a non-profit organization promoting artistic opportunities for disabled people.

Filmography

Commercials

* '' Street Fighter II' Plus'' (1993) (''

Vega Vega is the brightest star in the northern constellation of Lyra. It has the Bayer designation α Lyrae, which is Latinised to Alpha Lyrae and abbreviated Alpha Lyr or α Lyr. This star is relatively close at only from the Sun, and ...

'', ''Balrog'' in Japan)

Theatrical animation

* '' Crayon Shin-chan: The Legend Called: Dance! Amigo!'' (2006)

Video games

* ''

Valkyria Chronicles 4 ''Valkyria Chronicles 4'' is a tactical role-playing video game developed and published by Sega, with assistance from Media.Vision. It is the fourth main game in the ''Valkyria Chronicles'' series. It was released in Japan for the PlayStation 4 i ...

'' (2018) (Xanthus)

Television

* ''

Sakura The cherry blossom, or sakura, is the flower of trees in ''Prunus'' subgenus '' Cerasus''. ''Sakura'' usually refers to flowers of ornamental cherry trees, such as cultivars of ''Prunus serrulata'', not trees grown for their fruit (although ...

'' (2002) (Robert Hoffman) * '' Zero: Black Blood'' (2014) (Ring) * '' Garo: Makai no Hana'' (2014) (Luke/Stellas) * ''

Kamen Rider Ghost is a Japanese tokusatsu drama serving as the 17th Heisei period, Heisei Kamen Rider Series, and 26th series overall. Takuro Fukuda serves as ''Ghost''s lead screenwriter, with Satoshi Morota as director. It premiered on TV Asahi and affiliate sta ...

'' (2016) (Steve Bills) * ''

Segodon is a 2018 Japanese historical drama television series and the 57th NHK taiga drama. It stars Ryohei Suzuki as Saigō Takamori, who has been dubbed ''the last true samurai''. Plot The drama follows the life of historical figure Saigō Takamori. ...

'' (2018) (

Harry Smith Parkes Sir Harry Smith Parkes (24 February 1828 – 22 March 1885) was a British diplomat who served as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary and Consul General of the United Kingdom to the Empire of Japan from 1865 to 1883 and the Chinese ...

)

References

External links

Media International website

Official blog
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Camus, Thane 1970 births Living people Television personalities from New York City Expatriate television personalities in Japan American expatriates in Japan American people of French descent