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