Masakazu Tamura

was a Japanese film and theatre actor.

Profile

Masakazu Tamura was born 1 August 1943 in Kyoto, Japan to Japanese actor Tsumasaburō Bandō. Tsumasaburō Bandō died when Tamura was only nine years old. His brothers Takahiro and Ryō are also actors. He had been thinking of becoming an actor in the future since he was a child. He was thus trained in fighting with swords and more traditional forms of Japanese theatre like Kabuki and Nihon Buyō. He graduated from Seijo University.

In 1960, he made a cameo appearance in the film Hatamoto Gurentai, in which his older brother Takahiro starred. The following year, he signed a contract with the Shōchiku Ōfuna company while he was still in university. In the same year, he made his official film debut in the film Eternal Woman directed by Keisuke Kinoshita. His first leading film role was Kono koenaki sakebi directed by Hirokazu Ichimura in 1965. He left Shōchiku in 1966 and established his own agency. In 1967, He released the first and only song in his career "Sora Ippai no Namida". His breakthrough came in 1970 after landing a role in the television series Fuyu no Tabi on TBS. From 1970s, Tamura focused predominately on television with occasional film appearances including Yasuharu Hasebe's film and Yasuo Furuhata's film Nihon no Fixer . From the mid-1960s to the 1970s, Tamura was called the Japanese Alain Delon.

He appeared in many period dramas (jidaigeki) such as his lead role in Naruto Hichō on NHK and most of his roles were skilled swordsmen. From 1963 to 1966 Tamura had non-starring appearances in the annual Taiga drama for 4 years in a row. He also appeared in the Taiga drama Haru no Sakamichi (1971) and Shin Heike Monogatari (1972). He played the title role of "Nemuri Kyoshirō" and won great popularity in 1972; it is Tamura's most famous role in jidaigeki. Five sequel special's of the drama were made over a span of 45 years, he also played the same role on the stage in 1973 and 1981.

From the late 1980s he began to appear in comedy dramas such as Papa wa Newscaster or home dramas and gained new popularity.

In 1993, Tamura played the role of "Ogami Ittō" in Akira Inoue's film ' by Kazuo Koike's strong request. His photo book of the film was also released.