Tetsu Nakamura

, born Satoshi Nakamura (also credited as Tatsu Nakamura and Tetu Nakamura), was a Japanese film actor and opera singer active from the 1940s to the 1980s. He featured in over 40 films. Early years Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to a father involved in the lumber industry, Nakamura studied at Britannia Secondary School before enrolling at a music academy to become a baritone singer. After graduating, he performed on radio and in recitals before moving to Japan in 1940. There he enrolled in Nikkatsu's film acting school, and graduated in 1941. In the meantime, he was selected by the opera singer Yoshie Fujiwara to appear as Escamillo in Carmen in a performance at the Kabuki-za. Career He became a contract actor at the Toho Studios in 1942, and started appearing in roles in such films as The Opium War (1943), Ano hata o ute, and Aru yoru no tonosama (1946). After touring the United States as part of Fujiwara's opera company in 1953, he concentrated on film acting. With his fluency in English, he often appeared in foreign co-productions. He played the antagonist in Tokyo File 212 (1951) and a supporting role in Geisha Girl (1952). Writing about Tokyo File 212 in his book Korean War Filmography, Robert J. Lentz opined that "Nakamura [was] smooth and oily as the villain Oyama, who at heart [was] as much a capitalist as a Communist".