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Michiyo Aratama

Japanese actress (1930–2001)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ3311534 ↗
Source-derived summary

Michiyo Aratama (新珠三千代, Aratama Michiyo; 15 January 1930 – 17 March 2001) was a Japanese film and stage actress.

Biography

After graduating from the Takarazuka Music and Dance School, Aratama joined the Takarazuka Revue in 1945. She gave her film debut in 1951, but it was not before 1955 that she left the Takarazuka Revue, signing first with Nikkatsu film studios, then, after her contract expired, with Toho. She worked for directors such as Mikio Naruse, Yasujirō Ozu and Masaki Kobayashi, appearing in films like The Human Condition, The End of Summer, Kwaidan and 47 Ronin.

From the late 1970s on she concentrated solely on stage and television work. Due to health problems, she reduced her appearances after 1994. She died of heart failure in 2001. Aratama never married.

Selected filmography

Films

Television

Awards

1959 Blue Ribbon Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Human Condition and Watashi wa kai ni naritai

1959 Kinema Junpo Award for Best Actress for The Human Condition

1961 Mainichi Film Concour for Best Supporting Actress for The End of Summer and Minami no kaze to nami

References

External links

Michiyo Aratama at IMDb

Michiyo Aratama at the Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese)

Sheppard, Eugenia (20 January 1974). "Widow's peak mark of a star".

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Michiyo Aratama” is japanese actress (1930–2001). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Michiyo, Aratama and Japanese, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1930, 2001, 1945, 1951—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1930-01-15. For this dossier, Michiyo, Aratama and Japanese is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “japanese actress (1930–2001)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3311534. VIAF identifies the subject as 5211447. The Library of Congress control number is n96109672. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930, 2001, 1945 and 1951.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Michiyo Aratama”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Michiyo Aratama primary sources, Michiyo Aratama archive and Michiyo research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Michiyo Aratama”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Michiyo Aratama” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.