Yoko Tani

Yoko Tani 谷洋子 Tani Yōko 2 August 1928 19 April 1999 was a Frenchborn Japanese actress and nightclub entertainer Tani was born in Paris Her birth name was Itani Yōko 猪谷洋子 She has occasionally been described as Eurasian half French half Japanese and even in one source Italian Japanese all of which are incorrect French records 1958 show that her father and motherboth Japanesewere attached to the Japanese embassy in Paris with Tani herself conceived en route during a shipboard passage from Japan to Europe in 1927 and subsequently born in Paris the following year hence given the name Yōko 洋子 one reading of which can mean oceanchild Tani would later play a diplomats daughter in Piccadilly Third Stop According to Japanese sources the family returned to Japan in 1930 when Yoko would still have been a toddler and she did not return to France until 1950 when her schooling was completed Given that there were severe restrictions on Japanese travelling outside Japan directly after World War II this would have been an unusual event however it is known that Itani had attended an elite girls school in Tokyo Tokyo Womens Higher Normal School currently Ochanomizu University Senior High School and then graduated from Tsuda University She subsequently secured a Catholic scholarship to study aesthetics at the University of Paris Sorbonne under Étienne Souriau Once back in Paris Tani found little interest in attending university although by her own account she persevered for two years despite understanding hardly anything that was being said Instead she developed a more compelling attraction to the cabaret the nightclub and the variety musichall where setting herself up as an exotic oriental beauty she quickly established a reputation for her provocative geisha dances which generally ended with her slipping out of her kimono It was here she was spotted by Marcel Carné who took her into his circle of director and actorfriends including Roland Lesaffre whom she was later to marry As a result she began to get bit parts in filmsstarting as perhaps predictably a Japanese dancer in Grévilles Le port du désir 19531954 released 1955and on the stage with a role as Lotus Bleu in la Petite Maison de Thé French adaptation of The Teahouse of the August Moon at the Théâtre Montparnasse 19541955 season Source Article Yoko Tani from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30