Acting

Yukiko Tsukuba

Born 1906-06-10 · Tokyo, Japan

Yukiko Tsukuba (June 10, 1906 – June 8, 1977) was a Japanese actress on stage, in silent films, and in early sound films. She was also the All-Japan women's billiards champion in 1929. Tsukuba was born in Tokyo. She trained as a geisha, and became an internationally publicized beauty and film star while she was still in her teens. Tsukuba began her screen career at the Shochiku studio, working with directors including Yasujiro Shimazu, Hiroshi Shimizu, Yoshinobu Ikeda, Heinosuke Gosho, Kiyohiko Ushihara, Buntaro Futagawa, Torajiro Saito, and Mikio Naruse. She was dubbed "the Mary Pickford of Japan" in a 1926 American newspaper. With actor Tsuzuya Moroguchi, Tsukuba started a short-lived production company, in 1927. Tsukuba married businessman and politician Jinkichi Terada [ja] in 1942. Her husband died in 1976, and she died in 1977, from stomach cancer, at the age of 70, in Setagaya.

Acting credits

6.7

Japanese silent film directed by Yasujirô Shimazu, originally released as a two-part movie on December 11, 1931.

ABC Lifeline

1931

7.0

The three-hour Ai yo jinrui to tomo ni are / Love, Be with Humanity (1931) starts as a satire of alienation in the world of money, develops into a lumberland epic with a forest fire on Sakhalin Island, turns into a tragedy of King Lear dimensions, and manages to amaze the blasé audience with a happy end in the Wild West.

Love, Be with Humanity: Part 1

1931

Japanese silent film from 1926. (Obo-chan meaning "Young Master.") Written by Ayame Mizushima, the first female screenwriter in Japan.

Young Master

1926

A modern girl suddenly intrudes into a widower's family home.

Youth, Why Do You Cry?

1930

No artwork available

A feature-length work based on Kan Kikuchi’s newspaper novel, adapted for the screen by Kōgo Noda. With performances by stars such as Shizue Ryūda, Kinuyo Tanaka, and Yukiko Tsukuba, alongside handsome leading men like Shin’ichirō Komura, Hikaru Yamauchi, and Ichirō Yūki, the film outshone its contemporaries. The collaboration between director Heinosuke Gosho and cinematographer Mitsuo Miura, recently returned from America, gave rise to a work of first-class quality in the Japanese film world, distinguished by its brilliance and delicacy.

The Model of New Women

1929

No artwork available

A hard-working new employee at a trading company is promoted through the company president's business. However, he quarrels with his wife over something trivial, and her wife runs away from home, causing a fuss, but she returns to normal. Selected by Kinema Junpo as the 5th-best Japanese movie of 1926.

Useless Button

1926

7.3

An actress returns to Tokyo after a successful stint in Hollywood to reclaim—with the help of her gangster brother—the daughter she abandoned years before.