Setsuko Hara (Japanese: 原節子; born Masae Aida on June 171920 in Yokohama, Kanagawa prefecture) is a famous Japanese actress who appeared in many of Yasujiro Ozu's films. She also starred in pictures by Akira Kurosawa, Mikio Naruse and other prominent directors. She is called "the Eternal Virgin" in Japan and is a symbol of Japanese film's golden era of the 1950s. She suddenly quit acting in 1963, and has since led a secluded life in Kamakura, refusing all interviews and refusing to be photographed (making Japanese-cinema scholar Donald Richie refer to Hara as the "Greta Garbo of Japan"). Her final role was Riku, wife of Oishi Yoshio, in a film of Chūshingura. She later became the inspiration for the protagonist of the 2001 movie Millennium Actress. [1]
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