Biography
Chieko Naniwa (born Kikuno Nanko, 19 November 1907 – 22 December 1973) was a Japanese actress. Born in Tondabayashi, Osaka, to poultry farmers, she began working at a bento shop aged eight and later as a waitress in Kyoto before joining a theatre troupe at eighteen. She appeared in films from the mid-1920s and performed on stage with the Shochiku Shin-Kigeki company until 1951.
She is known for roles including Okimi in Kenji Mizoguchi’s A Geisha (1953), Ubatake in Sansho the Bailiff (1954), the Forest Spirit in Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957) and Hatsu Sasaki in Yasujirō Ozu’s Equinox Flower (1958). Other credits include Chikamatsu Monogatari (1954), Twenty-Four Eyes (1954) and The End of Summer (1961). She won a Blue Ribbon Award for A Geisha, later worked in radio and ran an inn in Kyoto’s Arashiyama district.
Naniwa died of gastrointestinal bleeding in Tokyo. She was posthumously awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Fourth Class.
