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John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC

You WILL build the bridge




Kintaro Hayakawa, known professionally as Sessue Hayakawa, was a Japanese actor and a matinée idol best known for his role as Colonel Saito in The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1957.
He was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood during the silent film era of the 1910s and early 1920s. Hayakawa was the first actor of Asian descent to achieve stardom as a leading man in the United States and Europe. His "broodingly handsome" good looks and typecasting as a sexually dominant villain made him a heartthrob among American women during a time of racial discrimination, and he became one of the first male sex symbols of Hollywood.
He made his breakthrough in The Cheat (1915), and thereafter became famous for his roles as a forbidden lover. Hayakawa was a highly paid star of his time, earning $3,500 a week in 1919 and $2 million through his own production company from 1918 to 1920.

Because of rising anti-Japanese sentiment and business difficulties, Hayakawa left Hollywood in 1922 and performed on Broadway and in Japan and Europe for many years before making his Hollywood comeback in Daughter of the Dragon
From an early age, Hayakawa's family intended him to become an officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy. However, while a student at the naval academy in Etajima, he swam to the bottom of a lagoon (he grew up in a shellfish diving community) on a dare and ruptured his eardrum. The injury caused him to fail the navy physical. His father felt shame and embarrassment by his son's failure, and this drove a wedge between them. 


The strained relationship drove the 18-year-old Hayakawa to attempt seppuku (ritual suicide). One evening, Hayakawa entered a shed on his parents' property and prepared the venue. He put his dog outside and attempted to uphold his family's samurai tradition by stabbing himself more than 30 times in the abdomen. The barking dog brought Hayakawa's parents to the scene and his father used an axe to break down the door, saving his life.
After he recovered from the suicide attempt, Hayakawa moved to the United States. A legend he created or that was created for him by the studios was that he began to study political economics at the University of Chicago to fulfill his family's new wish that he become a banker. While a student, he played quarterback for the football team and was once penalized for using jujitsu to bring down an opponent. However, there are no records of him at University of Chicago, in course enrollments or football team rosters or otherwise.

The Bridge on the River Kwai film won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Hayakawa earned a nomination for the Best Supporting Actor he was also nominated for a Golden Globe for the role that he called the highlight of his career. After the film, Hayakawa largely retired from acting and dedicated himself to Zen Buddhism, became an ordained Zen master, worked as a private acting coach, and authored his autobiography Zen Showed Me the Way