Noriko Sengoku

May 29, 1922 – December 27, 2012

Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan

Reiko Mori (April 29, 1922 – December 27, 2012), known by her stage name Noriko Sengoku, was a Japanese film and television actress active primarily in the 1950s and 1960s. She made her film debut in 1947 and starred in several of Akira Kurosawa's early films such as Drunken Angel, The Quiet Duel, Stray Dog, Scandal, The Idiot and Seven Samurai. During the war, she was a member of the traveling theater troupe Sakura-tai , which was wiped out in the Hiroshima atomic bombing . However, she escaped the atomic bombing because she was away from Hiroshima giving birth She was highly praised as a great supporting actress, and excelled in the role of a spiteful landlady. She believed that "a supporting role is like a 'screw in each corner'; if even one screw comes loose, the whole thing falls apart."