, also billed as Taku Takagi, was a Japanese dancer and actress in early silent films. She was the first female Japanese performer to appear in a film professionally, appearing in four shorts for the American-based

Thanhouser Company The Thanhouser Company (later the Thanhouser Film Corporation) was one of the first motion picture studios, founded in 1909 by Edwin Thanhouser, his wife Gertrude Thanhouser, Gertrude and his brother-in-law Lloyd Lonergan. It operated in New Yo ...

between the years 1911 and 1914. After returning to Japan, she was Japan's first dancer to dance in toe shoes.

Biography

Tokuko Takagi was born in Misakichō in 1891, the daughter of a banker. In 1906, she married Chimpei Takagi, 24, when she was 15. They both moved to America, where she sang at the

Manhattan Opera House The Manhattan Center is a building in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Built in 1906 and located at 311 West 34th Street, it houses Manhattan Center Studios, the location of two recording studios; its Grand Ballroom; and the Hammerstein Ballroo ...

in 1910. She acted in four silent films for the Thanhouser Company: ''The East and the West'' (1911), ''Miss Taku of Tokyo'' (1912), ''For the Mikado'' (1912), and ''The Birth of the Lotus Blossom'' (1912). "Acting in motion pictures is such a fun, but it isn't as easy as it looks," she told a reporter in 1912. "They want me to play just like a Japanese girl the American imagines." Takagi returned to Japan in 1914, due to the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. In 1915, she had her Japanese domestic dance debut in the

Imperial Theatre The Imperial Theatre is a Broadway theater at 249 West 45th Street ( George Abbott Way) in the Theater District of Midtown Manhattan in New York City, New York, U.S. Opened in 1923, the Imperial Theatre was designed by Herbert J. Krapp and ...

. While she was on tour in 1919, she suddenly died of a

cerebral hemorrhage Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), also known as hemorrhagic stroke, is a sudden bleeding into the tissues of the brain (i.e. the parenchyma), into its ventricles, or into both. An ICH is a type of bleeding within the skull and one kind of stro ...

. A biography of Takagi by was published in Japanese in 1985.

References

External links

* * (billed as ''Taku Takagi'') {{DEFAULTSORT:Takagi, Tokuko 1891 births 1919 deaths Japanese female dancers Japanese dancers Japanese stage actresses Japanese film actresses Japanese silent film actresses 20th-century Japanese actresses