Mako, Star of Film, Television, and Broadway’s Pacific Overtures, Dies at 72

Mako, an actor well known for his work in the original Broadway production of Pacific Overtures and for his many film and television roles, died on Friday, July 21 of esophageal cancer at his home in Ventura County, California. He was 72.

He was born Makoto Iwamatsu in Kobe, Japan, on December 10, 1933. When he was five, his parents left him in the care of his grandparents and went to study art in New York; Mako joined them there when he was 15. He later enrolled at the Pratt Institute with the intention of becoming an architect, but his career path changed when he accepted the invitation of a friend to design the sets and lighting for an Off-Broadway play. After two years of service in the U.S. military, he moved to California and studied theater at the Pasadena Playhouse.

The arc of Mako’s career reflected the progress of Asian Americans in U.S. theater, film, and television. In the 1966 movie The Sand Pebbles, he played the stereotypical Chinese character Po-han and earned an Academy Award nomination. He went on to appear in such films as Pearl Harbor, Seven Years in Tibet, Conan the Barbarian, and Conan the Destroyer, and in such popular TV series as McHale’s Navy, I Spy, M*A*S*H*, Quincy, and Walker, Texas Ranger.

In 1965, he co-founded the East West Players, the first Asian American theater company in the United States. As the L.A. troupe’s artistic director, Mako helped to provide training for several generations of actors and gave them the opportunity to appear both in contemporary plays and in classics by Shakespeare, Chekhov, et al. The company’s mission soon expanded to include the training of writers. Mako remained with the East West Players until 1989, when a rift with the board of directors caused him to leave.

In 1976, he played the Reciter, Shogun, Emperor, and Jonathan Goble (an American businessman) in the Stephen Sondheim-John Weidman musical Pacific Overtures, receiving a Tony Award nomination for his work. His only other Broadway show was Shimada, by Jill Shearer. The play, which also starred Ellen Burstyn, Ben Gazzara, Estelle Parsons, and Ernest Abuba, ran for only 20 previews and four regular performances at the Broadhurst Theatre in 1972.

Mako is survived by his wife, Shizuko Hoshi, a dancer, choreographer, and actress; and by their daughters, Sala and Mimosa.