was a professional actor, singer, stand-up comedian, and film producer. Also known by his nickname "Fanfan", he was born in Nice, France, to a Japanese father, Minoru Okada, who was an artist, and a Danish mother, Ingeborg Sevaldsen, who was the sister of Eline Eriksen, the model for the "Mermaid of Copenhagen". Masumi Okada was the younger of two sons; his older brother, Taibi "Erick" Okada, was also an actor and presenter- known professionally as E. H. Eric, he was the emcee for the Beatles' 1966 concert in Tokyo.
Biography
Masumi Okada spent the first four years of his life in France before relocating to Japan in 1939. He received his education under his Western name, Otto Sevaldsen, at Saint Joseph International School (SJIS) in the city of Yokohama in Kanagawa prefecture, graduating in 1955. In 1952, while still a student at SJIS, Okada debuted as an actor in a musical at the Nichigeki Music Hall. He signed with Nikkatsu Corporation in 1954, appearing in his first film, "Hatsukoi Kanariya Musume"/"Canary Girl's First Love", the following year.
In 1956, Okada was cast as the bandmaster in Takumi Furukawa and Shintaro Ishihara's "Taiyo no Kisetsu"/"Season of the Sun". This performance led to his appearance in the companion film, "Kurutta Kajitsu"/"Crazed Fruit" (1956), in which he played the cool, laid-back, finger-snapping Amerasian, "Frank Hirosawa", the unofficial leader of a band of young "rebels without a cause". Okada allegedly stole every scene in which he appeared.
In a career which spanned more than five decades, Okada went on to appear in over 140 films. A talented and versatile entertainer, he was also active on stage and television. His credits include all genres in the three media—from stage musicals to horror films, from comedies to historicals to tragedies, and from Shakespeare to science-fiction.
Okada's mixed ethnicity and proficiency in Japanese, English and French enabled him to portray a wide range of characters, in roles as diverse as "Count Dracula" in "The Vampire Dracula Comes To Kobe" (1979) to "Brother Michael" in James Clavell's "Shogun" (1980). He acted as the French physicist, "Dr. Jules Masson", in Ishiro Honda's "Latitude Zero"/"Ido Zero Daisakusen"/"Atragon II" (1969). In the film, "Marco" (1973), he was the Chinese ambassador, "Ti Wai". In "Bye-Bye, Jupiter"/"Sayonara, Jupiter" (1984), he was cast as "Dr. Mohammed Mansur", and in "Getting Any?" (1994) -- a comedy with "Beat" Takeshi Kitano—Okada made a cameo appearance as the Russian leader, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. Okada's film credits also included "Arashi wo yobu otoko"/"Man Who Causes a Storm" (1957), "Akai hatoba"/"Red Quay" (1958), "Ankoku no Ryoken"/"Passport to Darkness" (1959), "Yoru no nagare"/"Evening Storm" (1960), "Oneechan wa tsuiteru ze"/"Anything Goes Three Dolls' Way" (1960), "Kyuketsu Dokurosen"/"Living Skeleton" (1968), "Moeru Tairiku"/"The Blazing Continent" (1968), "Isoge! Wakamono: Tomorrow Never Waits"/"Hurry, Young Ones! Tomorrow Never Waits" (1974), "Hishu monogatari"/"A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness" (1977), "Fuku no hana"/"Winter's Flower" (1978), "Umi to dokuyaku"/"The Sea and Poison" (1986), "CF Garu"/"Commercial Film Girl" (1989), "The Hunted" (1995), "Izo" (2004) and "Shiberia Chotokkyu 5"/"Siberia Express 5" (2005).
Okada's other contributions to the film industry include his role as a producer for both "Battle Royale" (2000) and "Battle Royale II: Requiem" (2003), as well as "Chichan wa sokyu no muko" (date of release: January 19, 2008). He was also the executive producer of "Blue" (2002), a critically acclaimed film about the relationship between two schoolgirls involved in a lesbian crush.
Okada's stage credits include the Toho musicals, in which he starred after leaving Nikkatsu Corporation, as well as the French musical, "La Cage aux Folles", which ran for over 400 performances. In 2001, he appeared as the French philosopher and writer, Voltaire, in a Japanese-language version of the operetta, "Candide", by Leonard Bernstein, the composer of "West Side Story" (1957).
Okada also founded the theater company, Gekidan Keyaki, in Japan.