TOMOYUKI TANAKA Biography - Bussiness people and enterpreneurs

 
 

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TOMOYUKI TANAKA

Name: Tomoyuki Tanaka                                                                   
Born: 26 April 1910                                                                     
Died: 2 April 1997                                                                     
                                                                                       
Tomoyuki Tanaka was a Japanese film producer, most                                     
famous for creating the Godzilla movies. He was born in Osaka, Japan on April 26,       
1910, and died in Tokyo on April 2, 1997.                                               
                                                                                       
Soon after graduating from Kansai University in 1940, Tanaka joined Toho Studios.       
After four years with the company, he began producing his own films. In his 60-year     
career with Toho, Tanaka produced more than 200 films.                                 
                                                                                       
He is best known as the creator, with storyteller Shigeru Kayama, director             
Ishir Honda and special-effects wizard Eiji Tsuburaya, of Godzilla, the                 
towering embodiment of post-World War II anxiety. Tanaka created Godzilla in           
1954 in an effort to illlustrate the terror Japanese felt after the bombings of         
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The classic Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1954;             
released in the U.S. in 1956) would spawn a series of sequels, adding up to 28         
films by 2004.                                                                         
                                                                                       
In addition to other sci-fi thrillers (often with the other three members of the       
Godzilla team: Honda and Tsuburaya, and composer Akira Ifukube) such as The             
Mysterians (1957) and Matango (1963), Tanaka produced films directed by the             
acclaimed Akira Kurosawa. Their film Kagemusha (1980) was nominated for a Best         
Foreign Film Oscar and took the Palme d'Or at Cannes.                                   
                                                                                       
He has a dedication to his death in the remake of Godzilla.