Golden Globe-winning actor Shimada Yoko passes away

Japanese actor Shimada Yoko, who earned a Golden Globe for her role as Mariko in the 1980s television miniseries Shogun, has passed away. She was 69.

Japanese media announced that Shimada had died of multiple organ failure because of colorectal cancer in a Tokyo hospital on Monday, July 25.

Born in 1953 in Kumamoto, a city on the southern island of Kyushu, Shimada made her TV debut in the 1970 drama Osanazuma. She became popular in the 1970s playing pure and virtuous types on TV and in films, including the 1974 hit The Castle of Sand.

Despite her limited English-language skills, she had one of the few English-speaking roles in Shogun when she was cast in the role of Mariko, the love interest of Richard Chamberlain's shipwrecked British navigator turned samurai.

Following the worldwide success of Shogun, Shimada essayed other roles in Hollywood, while continuing to work in Japan, mainly on television. One such international project was Little Champion, a 1981 biopic of Japanese-American marathoner Michiko 'Miki' Suwa Gorman, with Shimada playing the lead.

Her last screen role was in the 2016 Saiga Toshiro drama, Kanon.