Mitsuko Mori: Google Doodle celebrates the first Japanese actress to receive People’s Honor Award

Google Doodle celebrates Japanese actress Mitsuko Mori (森 光子), who became the first entertainer in Japan to have played out the stage play Hōrōki (放浪記, “A Wanderer’s Notebook”) 2000 times, on July 1, 2021.

Who was Mitsuko Mori?

Mitsuko Mori (森 光子) was born as Mitsu Murakami (村上美津) on May 9, 1920 in Kyoto, Japan. She became the first actress in Japanese history to perform 2000 times in “Horoki” (“A Wanderer’s Notebook”), a theater play dependent on the autobiographical novel of author Fumiko Hayashi.

Mitsuko Mori (森 光子) made her cinematic debut at 14 in a historic drama film. Additionally a talented actress, Mitsuko moved to Tokyo in 1941, where she honed her abilities as a jazz singer, an ability she exhibited throughout the decade on tours in Japan, China, and Southeast Asia.

In 1952, Mitsuko Mori kept on demonstrating her active range when she made her comedic debut in a stage play highlighted on radio stations across Japan—widespread exposure that cast her into the national spotlight.

A set up name in Japanese entertainment, Mitsuko Mori debuted in “Horoki” in 1961 as the lead character Fumiko Hayashi, a role she played very much into her 80s for a record 2,017 performances.

Before one of these productions in 2007, more than 45 years since it initially showed, Mitsuko Mori told reporters that she was retiring her character’s signature reflex to good news—a forward somersault—to stay away from injury in her old age. She gave her last “Horoki” performance in 2009, bowing out as a whiz of contemporary Japanese theater.

Mitsuko Mori (森 光子) was an actress, known for Princess Mononoke (1997), Kawa no nagare no you ni (2000) and Ninjutsu sekigahara: Sarutobi Sasuke (1938). She was married to Yoshihiko Okamoto.

On May 11, 2009, Takeo Kawamura declared that Mitsuko Mori would be awarded the People’s Honor Award.

Mitsuko Mori (森 光子) became the first actress in Japanese history to perform 2000 times in “Horoki” (放浪記). In acknowledgment of this unparalleled lifetime achievement, on July 1, 2009, she became the first entertainer to ever accept Japan’s renowned People’s Honor Award.

All through her 80s, Mitsuko Mori showed up from time to time in TV dramas prior to bowing out in 2010.

Mitsuko Mori (森 光子) died of heart failure on November 10, 2012, at a hospital in Tokyo, at the age of 92.

On July 1, 2021, Google is featuring a Doodle for celebrating Mitsuko Mori (森 光子), who got Japanese esteemed People’s Honor Award.