Yoshiko Yamaguchi

Yoshiko Yamaguchi
山口 淑子
Yamaguchi in the 1940s
Member of the House of Councillors
In office July 8, 1974 – July 7, 1992
Constituency	National district (1974-83) National PR (1983-1992)
Personal details
Born	Yoshiko Yamaguchi (1920-02-12)February 12, 1920 Liaoyang, Manchuria, Republic of China
Died	September 7, 2014(2014-09-07) (aged 94) Tokyo, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Political party	Liberal Democratic Party
Spouses	Isamu Noguchi ​ ​ (m. 1951; div. 1956)​ Hiroshi Otaka ​ ​ (m. 1958; died 2001)​
Occupation	Singer, actress, journalist, politician
Awards	Order of the Sacred Treasure, Second Class
Musical career
Also known as	Yoshiko Ōtaka (大鷹 淑子) Pan Shuhua (潘淑華) Shirley Yamaguchi Li Hsiang-lan (李香蘭)
Genres	Popular music
Years active	1938–1958
Musical artist
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	李香蘭
Simplified Chinese	李香兰
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Lǐ Xiānglán Wade–Giles Li3 Hsiang1-lan2 Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Lei5 Hoeng1 Laan4

Yoshiko Yamaguchi (Japanese: 山口淑子 Yamaguchi Yoshiko; Chinese: 山口淑子 Shānkǒu Shūzǐ; 12 February, 1920 – 7 September, 2014) was a Japanese singer, actress, journalist, and politician. Born in China, she made an international career in film in China, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States.

Early in her career, the Manchukuo Film Association concealed her Japanese origin and she went by the Chinese name Li Hsiang-lan (李香蘭), rendered in Japanese as Ri Kōran. This allowed her to represent China in Japanese propaganda movies. After the war, she appeared in Japanese movies under her real name, as well as in several English language movies under the stage name, Shirley Yamaguchi.

After becoming a journalist in the 1950s under the name Yoshiko Ōtaka (大鷹 淑子, Ōtaka Yoshiko), she was elected as a member of the Japanese parliament in 1974, and served for 18 years. After retiring from politics, she served as vice president of the Asian Women's Fund.^[1]