Tamasaburo Bando

Biography

Kabuki actor, and the most popular and celebrated onnagata (an actor specializing in female roles) currently on stage. He has also acted in a handful of films. Born in 1950, Shin'ichi Morita was adopted by Morita Kan'ya XIV, and made his first appearance on stage at the age of seven, under the name Bandō Kinoji. At a shūmei (naming ceremony) in 1964 he became the fifth to take the name Bandō Tamasaburō; his adoptive father had been the fourth. In 1993, he directed the film Yearning, which was entered into the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival