Oral history interview with Sessue Hayakawa, 1959

Biographical Note

Actor

Scope and Contents

Childhood and early adulthood in Japan; emigration to United States, University of Chicago, 1909; Japanese theater in Los Angeles, 1914; career in silent films; "Typhoon," work for Paramount, owner film company, 1917-'20s; filmmaking in France, "Rabbatais"; command performance for British royal family, 1923; Paris during 1920s; first role in sound pictures "Daughter of the Dragon" 1930; occupied France during World War II; filming "The Bridge on the River Kwai" 1957; reminiscences of directors Cecil B. DeMille, D.W. Griffith, David Lean and others. Audio is comprised of narrator's excerpts from the Westinghouse Broadcasting Company's radio program series "Memoirs of the Movies"

Subjects

• Actors--Interviews.
• Franklin, Joan, interviewer.
• Franklin, Robert, interviewer.
• Hayakawa, Sesshū, 1889-1973--Interviews.
• Interviews.
• Motion picture acting.
• Motion picture industry.
• Motion picture producers and directors.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Silent films.