AllMovie

Though his given name might not be instantly familiar, American television fans (and especially fans of cooking shows) will have no difficulty identifying Takeshi Kaga by countenance; he is better known to U.S. viewers as the Iron Chef (or Chairman Kaga, an über-eccentric gourmand who lives in a towering castle and presides over an on-camera cook-off among various culinary artists. In truth, Kaga was no one-hit wonder or gimmick actor; he sustained a reputation in his native Japan as one of the most serious and disciplined thespians of his generation. Born in Ishikawa, Japan, in 1950, Kaga began his professional dramatic life on-stage where he gained a dual footnote, as both the first Japanese man to play Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar (ca. 1976) and the first to play Tony in West Side Story (ca. 1977). He began appearing in features in 1980 and achieved crossover recognition on PBS for his performance as Jean Valjean in the 1994 Japanese stage production of Les Miserables. Kaga's feature projects include the 1981 Island of the Evil Spirits, the 1986 Cabaret, and the 1988 Yen Family; he also signed for roles in the first two installments of the Death Note science fiction saga: Death Note (2006) and Death Note: The Last Name. His broadest recognition, however, continued to come from Iron Chef in its original Japanese and its U.S. versions.