Tetsu Nakamura (actor)

Tetsu Nakamura (中村 哲), born Satoshi Nakamura (also credited as Tatsu Nakamura and Tetu Nakamura), was a Japanese film actor and opera singer active from the 1940s to the 1980s.

He featured in over 40 films.

Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to a father involved in the lumber industry, Nakamura studied at Britannia Secondary School before enrolling at a music academy to become a baritone singer.

After graduating, he performed on radio and in recitals before moving to Japan in 1940.

There he enrolled in Nikkatsu's film acting school, and graduated in 1941.

In the meantime, he was selected by the opera singer Yoshie Fujiwara to appear as Escamillo in Carmen in a performance at the Kabuki-za.

He became a contract actor at the Toho Studios in 1942, and started appearing in roles in such films as The Opium War (1943), Ano hata o ute, and Aru yoru no tonosama (1946).

He played the antagonist in Tokyo File 212 (1951) and a supporting role in Geisha Girl (1952).

Writing about Tokyo File 212 in his book Korean War Filmography, Robert J. Lentz opined that "Nakamura [was] smooth and oily as the villain Oyama, who at heart [was] as much a capitalist as a Communist".

After touring the United States as part of Fujiwara's opera company in 1953, he concentrated on film acting.

With his fluency in English, he often appeared in foreign co-productions.

His other prominent roles include Dr. Robert Suzuki in George Breakston's science-fiction horror film The Manster (1962), Japanese Ambassador in the international co-production Red Sun (1971), Dr. Kawamoto in the B-movie The Last Dinosaur (1977) and other roles in Oriental Evil (1951), Futari no hitomi (1952), The H-Man (1958), Mothra (1961), The Lost World of Sinbad (1963) and Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Kagi no kagi (1965).

He also appeared on television well into the 1980s.