Obituary: Haruo Nakajima, actor who portrayed Japanese monster in original 1954 Godzilla film

Haruo Nakajima, actor who played the original Godzilla. Born: 1 January, 1929 in Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. Died: 7 August 2017, aged 88
Original Godzilla actor Haruo Nakajima points to a figure of the monster. He has died at the age of 88. Picture: APOriginal Godzilla actor Haruo Nakajima points to a figure of the monster. He has died at the age of 88. Picture: AP
Original Godzilla actor Haruo Nakajima points to a figure of the monster. He has died at the age of 88. Picture: AP

Haruo Nakajima, the actor who stomped in a rubber suit to portray the original 1954 Godzilla, helping to make the Japanese monster an iconic symbol of the nuclear era, has died at the age of 88.

Nakajima’s daughter Sonoe Nakajima said he had been hospitalised last month and died of pneumonia.

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Haruo Nakajima was a stunt actor in samurai films when he was approached to take the role of Godzilla, which may be Japan’s most successful cultural export. Some fans prefer Nakajima’s version over some Hollywood depictions which they say make the fire-breathing lizard an evil-looking animal.

Vivacious and energetic in a 2014 interview with AP, Nakajima said he invented the character from scratch, and developed it by going to a zoo to study how elephants and bears moved. He said it was important to show the pathos of the creature, which could only smash everything in its way.

“If Godzilla can’t walk properly, it’s nothing but a freak show,” he said at his suburban Tokyo apartment, proudly sitting among sepia-toned photos of him as a young man and Godzilla figures.

He recalled that the rubber suit he wore was so hot, especially under the glaring lights of the movie set, that the sweat he wrung from his shirt would fill half a bucket.

In the original movie, directed by Ishiro Honda with an unforgettable score by Akira Ifukube, Godzilla surfaces from the Pacific Ocean suddenly, a mutation as a result of nuclear testing in the area.

The Toho classic, which went on to become a mega-series and inspired Hollywood spin-offs, struck a chord with postwar Japan, the only nation in the world to suffer atomic bombing, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the closing days of the Second World War.

Nakajima said the theme of his Godzilla was grand and complex, addressing universal human problems, as it spoke to a Japan that still remembered wartime suffering. “It’s not some cowboy movie,” he said.

Although recent Godzilla films use computer graphics, the latest Japanese Godzilla remake, released last year, went back to using a human actor, Mansai Nomura, a specialist in the traditional theater of Kyogen. His movements were duplicated on the screen through “motion capture” technology.

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Until recently, Nakajima had continued to be a star guest at festivals and events.

He had been scheduled to be featured at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October.

“I am the original, the real thing,” he said in 2014. “My Godzilla was the best.”

A funeral is to be held for family and close friends.

YURI KAGEYAMA

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