Momoko Kôchi(1932-1998)

Discovered, along with actors Akira Takarada and Yū Fujiki, in Toho's sixth annual New Face Contest in 1953, Momoko Kochi was immediately cast in her first film, A Woman's Heart Released Onna gokoro wa hitosuji ni (1953). Two pictures with Toho's veteran director Kajirō Yamamoto followed the next year. It was probably in his mentor Yamamoto's films that younger director Ishirō Honda saw her and chose her to play the female lead in his classic Gojira Godzilla (1954). Kochi's excellence in Gojira led to typecasting in several more such roles, both in monster movies and in other genres. By 1959. Kochi decided the only thing keeping her from better roles was her lack of formal training, which she immediately commenced. A turn in a Shakespeare play on stage soon followed, and Kochi began to pursue a stage career, her income fortified by work in TV commercials. Her appearances in films were minimal from then on, but fans of Gojira never forgot her, and director Takao Okawara wisely tapped her to reprise her role of Emiko Yamane, among the sole survivors of the original, in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995). Used to working with younger actors, Okawara was highly impressed by Kochi's intensive training and powers of concentration: all her scenes were able to be wrapped in a single day.