Shima Iwashita

Shima Iwashita (岩下志麻) is a Japanese stage and film actress who has appeared in films of Yasujirō Ozu, Keisuke Kinoshita, Masaki Kobayashi and most frequently of Masahiro Shinoda, her husband.

Iwashita was born in Tokyo, Japan, as the eldest daughter of Kiyoshi Nonomura and Miyoko Yamagishi, both stage actors.

In 1958, while still attending high school, she made her first television appearance in the NHK series Basu tōri ura.

The following year, she entered the literature department of Seijo University, which she left without a degree.

She entered the Shochiku film studios the same year (1960) and gave her debut in Keisuke Kinoshita's The River Fuefuki, but due to the film's long production time, it was her next film, Masahiro Shinoda's Dry Lake, which was released first.

In 1961, she received the Blue Ribbon Newcomer Award.

Iwashita subsequently appeared in Yasujirō Ozu's last film, An Autumn Afternoon, Masaki Kobayashi's Harakiri (both 1962), Noboru Nakamura's Twin Sisters of Kyoto (1963), in which she played a dual role, and many films by her husband Masahiro Shinoda like Assassination (1964) and Double Suicide (1969), in which she again played a dual role.

Also in 1969, she appeared on stage in the role of Desdemona in Othello.

In addition to her film work, she kept appearing on television and on stage, receiving numerous awards like the Blue Ribbon Award, the Kinema Junpo Award and the Mainichi Award for Best Actress.