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Known For

Miiko Taka is known for:

  • Sayonara
    Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver (Marlon Brando) is reassigned to a Japanese air base, and is confronted with US racial prejudice against the Japanese people. The issue is compounded because a number of the soldiers become romantically involved with Japanese women, in defiance of US military policy. Ordinarily an officer who is by-the-book, Gruver must take a position when a buddy of his, an enlisted man Joe Kelly (Red Buttons) falls in love with a Japanese woman Katsumi (Miyoshi Umeki) and marries her. Gruver risks his position by serving as best man at the wedding ceremony.
  • Walk Don't Run
    During the '64 Olympics in Tokyo, Sir William "Bill" Rutland is visiting strictly for business but has no place to stay after his hotel reservation is screwed up. Everything's booked solid because of the Olympics. He sees a note posted in English, "Roommate wanted." He answers the ad, and finds a tiny two-room traditional Japanese apartment (sliding screens, tatami mats) inhabited by a British woman, an embassy worker. She gives him a cold reception because she wanted a woman roommate, but he persuades her to let him stay just a little while--and soon he's invited another man, an Olympic athlete, to share the tiny two-room sliding-screen apartment, too.

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Biography

Miiko Taka (高美以子) (born Miiko Shikata July 24, 1925 – January 4, 2023) was an American actress, popular for her film and television roles from the late 1950s until the early 1980s. Her best known role was as an elegant Japanese dancer starring with Marlon Brando in the drama Sayonara. She also acted in several other films and TV shows with fellow performers such as Miyoshi Umeki, James Garner, Bob Hope, Cary Grant, and Toshirō Mifune. After Audrey Hepburn, director Joshua Logan's first choice for the role of Hana-ogi, turned him down, he looked to cast an unknown actress. Taka, who at the time was working as a clerk at a travel agency in Los Angeles, was discovered by a talent scout at a local Nisei festival. Although she had no previous acting experience, Variety gave her a positive review in their review of the film. Warner Bros. gave her a term contract as a result of her performance in Sayonara.