Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Setsuko Hara (June 17, 1920 – September 5, 2015) was a Japanese actress who appeared in six of Yasujirō Ozu's films, most notably as Noriko in the "Noriko Trilogy": Late Spring (1949), Early Summer (1951), and Tokyo Story (1953). Her other films for Ozu were Tokyo Twilight (1957), Late Autumn (1960), and finally The End of Summer in 1961. She was born Masae Aida in Yokohama, Kanagawa prefecture. She came to prominence as an actress at an early age, in the 1937 German-Japanese co-production Die Tochter des Samurai (Daughter of the Samurai), known in Japan as Atarashiki Tsuchi (The New Earth), directed by Arnold Fanck and Mansaku Itami.