Keiko Sonoi | |
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園井恵子 | |
Pronunciation | Sono'i Kei'ko |
Born | Tomi Hakamada (袴田トミ) August 6, 1913 Matsuo, Iwate (now Hachimantai) |
Died | 21 August 1945 Kobe, Hyogo | (aged 32)
Nationality | Japanese |
Other names | Kiyono Kasanui (笠縫清乃)[1] |
Alma mater | Takarazuka Revue |
Occupation | actress |
Years active | 1930–1945 |
Known for | film, theatre |
Notable credit | Muhōmatsu no isshō (1943, Daiei Film) |
Height | 155 cm (5.09 ft) |
Keiko Sonoi (園井 恵子, Sonoi Keiko, 6 August 1913 – 21 August 1945) was a Japanese actress, who was a member of the all-female musical-performing Takarazuka Revue during the 1930s and the 1940s, best known for her role as an officer's widow in the wartime film Muhōmatsu no isshō (1943) , and for being part of the Sakura-tai or Cherry Blossom Unit of traveling shingeki play actors who died as a result of the 1945 Hiroshima bombing.
The fate of the Cherry Blossom Unit was later dramatized by playwright Hisashi Inoue, and also made into a feature film by director Kaneto Shindo.
The actress appears to have had a long-held desire to perform shingeki plays, but that was not economically viable due to the need to her support her parents and siblings. As a Takarazienne, she had the manga comic artist Osamu Tezuka as a childhood fan who lived on her block, and Astro Boy may have been influenced by Sonoi's performance of Pinochio ("Pinocchio") from April to May, 1942.