Yoko Tani

1928-08-02 Paris, France

Biografia

Yoko Tani (谷洋子, Tani Yōko, 2 August 1928 – 19 April 1999) was a French-born Japanese actress and nightclub entertainer. Tani was born in Paris. Her birth name was Itani Yōko (猪谷洋子). She has occasionally been described as 'Eurasian', 'half French', 'half Japanese' and even, in one source, 'Italian Japanese', all of which are incorrect. French records (1958) show that her father and mother—both Japanese—were attached to the Japanese embassy in Paris, with Tani herself conceived en route during a shipboard passage from Japan to Europe in 1927 and subsequently born in Paris the following year, hence given the name Yōko (洋子), one reading of which can mean "ocean-child.". Tani would later play a diplomat's daughter in Piccadilly Third Stop. According to Japanese sources, the family returned to Japan in 1930, when Yoko would still have been a toddler, and she did not return to France until 1950 when her schooling was completed. Given that there were severe restrictions on Japanese travelling outside Japan directly after World War II, this would have been an unusual event; however, it is known that Itani had attended an elite girls' school in Tokyo (Tokyo Women's Higher Normal School, currently Ochanomizu University Senior High School), and then graduated from Tsuda University. She subsequently secured a Catholic scholarship to study aesthetics at the University of Paris (Sorbonne) under Étienne Souriau. Once back in Paris, Tani found little interest in attending university (although by her own account she persevered for two years despite understanding hardly anything that was being said). Instead, she developed a more compelling attraction to the cabaret, the nightclub, and the variety music-hall, where, setting herself up as an exotic oriental beauty, she quickly established a reputation for her provocative "geisha" dances, which generally ended with her slipping out of her kimono. It was here she was spotted by Marcel Carné, who took her into his circle of director and actor-friends, including Roland Lesaffre, whom she was later to marry. As a result, she began to get bit parts in films—starting as (perhaps predictably) a Japanese dancer, in Gréville's Le port du désir (1953–1954, released 1955)—and on the stage, with a role as Lotus Bleu in la Petite Maison de Thé (French adaptation of The Teahouse of the August Moon) at the Théâtre Montparnasse, 1954–1955 season. ... Source: Article "Yoko Tani" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Películas

	Le lotus d'or		1991-01-01
	Koroshi	Ako Nakamura / Miho	1968-11-28
	Le 7 Cinesi d'oro		1967-12-12
	To Chase A Million	Taiko	1967-01-01
	Goldsnake: Anonima Killers	Annie Wong	1966-06-02
	Le spie amano i fiori	Mei Lang	1966-08-12
	Agente Z 55 missione disperata	Su Ling	1965-11-13
	OSS 77 - Operazione fior di loto	Lady of Formosa	1965-08-26
	Invasion	Leader of the Lystrians	1965-10-01
	F.B.I. operazione Baalbeck	Asia	1964-06-29
	Bianco, rosso, giallo, rosa	Yoko	1964-12-29
	Die Todesstrahlen des Dr. Mabuse	Mercedes	1964-09-17
	Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?	Isami Hiroti	1963-12-25
	My Geisha	Kazumi Ito	1962-03-09
	Marco Polo	Princess Amurroy	1962-04-13
	Ursus e la ragazza tartara	Princess Ila	1961-12-30
	Maciste alla corte del Gran Khan	Princess Lei-ling	1961-10-31
	The Savage Innocents	Asiak	1960-03-20
	Piccadilly Third Stop	Fina (Seraphina) Yokami (as Yoko Tani)	1960-09-05
	Der schweigende Stern	Sumiko Ogimura, japanische Ärztin	1960-02-26
	Yoko Tani in London	Herself	1959-04-02
	La Fille de feu	Zélie	1958-01-17
	The Quiet American	Rendezvous Hostess	1958-02-08
	The Wind Cannot Read	Sabbi	1958-06-10
	Les oeufs de l'autruche	Yoko	1957-08-29
	Mannequins de Paris	Lotus	1956-09-19
	Paris canaille	Une élève	1956-01-20
	À la manière de Sherlock Holmes		1956-06-05
	女囚と共に	Mary, prisoner	1956-09-11
	Gueule d'ange		1955-09-02
	Port du désir	Une entraîneuse	1955-04-15
	Les pépées font la loi	La fleuriste du "Lotus"	1955-03-29
	Les Clandestines	The Chinese	1954-10-18
	Marchandes d'illusions		1954-08-04