Biography

Invented the Godzilla film character from scratch and developed it by going to a zoo to study how elephants and bears moved. He said, "It was important to show the pathos of the creature, which could only smash everything in its way". The theme of his Godzilla was grand and complex, addressing universal human problems, as it spoke to a Japan that still remembered wartime suffering. "If Godzilla can't walk properly, it's nothing but a freak show," he said in a 2014 interview with the Associated Press at his suburban Tokyo apartment, proudly sitting among photos of himself as a young man and Godzilla figures. "It's not some cowboy movie," he said. He recalled that the rubber suit he wore was so hot that the sweat he wrung from his shirt would fill half a bucket. In the original movie, directed by Ishirô Honda with an unforgettable film score by Akira Ifukube, Godzilla surfaces from the Pacific Ocean suddenly, a mutation resulting from nuclear testing in the area. Until recently, Nakajima was a star guest at film festivals and events, He had been scheduled to be featured at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October, 2017. In the 2014 interview, he said, "I am the original, the real thing, My Godzilla was the best".

Suffered numerous injuries playing Godzilla and other monsters, including burns, electric shocks and near-suffocation.

Was 25 years old when he stomped over miniature bridges and buildings in a rubber suit and gave the world "Godzilla!" in the original Gojira (1954) (aka "Godzilla"), playing the fire-breathing, screeching monster that became Japan's star cultural export and an enduring symbol of the pathos and destruction of the Atomic Age. "Godzilla," which went on to become a mega-franchise and inspired Hollywood spin-offs, struck a chord in postwar Japan, the only nation to suffer atomic bombing, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, by the US Army Air Force in the closing days of World War II.

Most famous for portraying "Gojira"--aka "Godzilla"--in 12 films, more than any other actor.

His daughter Sonoe Nakajima accompanied him at Monsterpalooza 2011.