Biography

Throughout his life Yujiro used alcohol and tobacco, and ate meals that were lacking in vegetables; this unhealthy lifestyle is generally acknowledged as contributing to his early death.

Yujiro survived a 1978 oral cancer of the tongue, and a 1981 aortic aneurysm, supported by friends, family and his legion of fans. However he was later diagnosed with liver cancer and died at Keio University Hospital in 1987 on July 17 at 4:26. He was 52 years old.

In 1956, with help from producer Takiko Mizunoe and his brother Shintaro, he received a bit-part in the film adaptation of Shintaro's Akutagawa Prize-winning Season of the Sun, making his film debut. Afterwards he withdrew from Keio University to work for Nikkatsu, playing the lead in the film adaptation of Shintaro's novel Crazed Fruit.

In 1996 his older brother, Shintaro, published a biography, Ototo , (Younger Brother), that won the Mainichi Bungakusho Special Prize and became the basis of a drama broadcast by TV Asahi in 2004.

He was beloved by many fans as a representative youth star in the films of postwar Japan and subsequently as a macho movie hero.