Hideyo Amamoto

Amamoto worked for most of his career as Eisei Amamoto, a misreading of the kanji in his real name that he simply kept. Toho used him constantly, and the reason is visible in a single frame: a long, gaunt face that could be tipped into menace, comedy or grief with almost no adjustment.

That face got him the villains. He is Dr. Who in King Kong Escapes, a mad scientist running a mechanical Kong out of an Arctic base, and Dr. Shinigami across the original Kamen Rider, the role Japanese audiences still name first. He turns up as a Red Bamboo officer in Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, the High Priest of Mu in Atragon, a half-transformed fungus casualty in Matango and the friendly toy designer in All Monsters Attack. The trick in all of them is that he never plays the material as a joke, which is why the scarier ones actually land.

The tokusatsu work is only half of it. Kurosawa cast him as the villager Yahachi in Yojimbo; Kihachi Okamoto used him repeatedly, in Samurai Assassin, Kill! and the bleak wartime satire The Human Bullet. He was still working late in life, playing the prophet who explains the monsters in Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. He died of complications from pneumonia in March 2003, at 77.