Tsuruta Koji

Tsuruta Koji (鶴田 浩二) was born on December 6, 1924. Tsuruta Koji movies and tv shows: Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon 1977 (Japan), Sympathy for the Underdog 1971 (Japan), Japan's Organized Crime Boss 1969 (Japan), Young Eagles of the Kamikaze 1968 (Japan), Theater of Life: Hishakaku 1963 (Japan)...

Tsuruta Koji was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 260 feature films.

Born in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Japan as Eiichi Ono, Tsuruta was studying at Kansai University when he was drafted into the Japanese Imperial Navy. After the war he joined Takada Kokichi's theater troupe and made his film debut at Shochiku in 1948 with Yukyo no mure (Crowd of Aso). Later moving to Toho and then to Toei, he played handsome leads or, in a number of films, Mifune Toshiro's rival, as he did in the Samurai Trilogy. In the 1960s, he starred in many of Toei's ninkyo eiga as chivalric but world-weary yakuza. He was often considered the yakuza genre’s first star. Tsuruta was also a successful singer, scoring hits with such songs as Kizudarake no jinsei.