Wakao Ayako: The Career of a Classic Silver Screen Star

Second from right in Akasen chitai (Street of Shame). Kyō Machiko is at center. (© Kadokawa 1956)

In Ukikusa (Floating Weeds), her character sets out to seduce a post office clerk played by Kawaguchi Hiroshi. (© Kadokawa 1959)

Eight years after her breakout role as a maiko in Gion bayashi (A Geisha) (left), she played a geisha in Kawashima Yūzō’s Onna wa nido umareru (Woman Are Born Twice). (© Kadokawa 1953, 1961)

In Kawashima Yūzō’s Shitoyakana kemono (Elegant Beast). (© Kadokawa 1962)

In films directed by Masumura Yasuzō; from left, Aozora musume (The Blue Sky Maiden), Saikō shukun fujin (The Most Valuable Wife), and Akai tenshi (Red Angel). (© Kadokawa 1957, 1959, 1966)

In Manji, she entrances a married woman played by Kishida Kyōko, at right. (© Kadokawa 1964)

In Onna no kobako yori otto ga mita (The Husband Witnessed). (© Kadokawa 1964)

In Ichikawa Kon’s Bonchi. (© Kadokawa 1960)

With Mishima Yukio, who plays a gangster, in Masumura Yasuzō’s Karakkaze yarō (Afraid to Die). (© Kadokawa 1960)

From left; in Tanaka Shigeo’s Tōkyō onigiri musume (Triangle Moods), Inoue Umetsugu’s Ginzakko monogatari (Ginza Girl Story), and Masumura Yasuzō’s Tsuma wa kokuhaku suru (A Wife Confesses). (© Kadokawa 1961)