Akiko Koyama

Akiko Koyama (小山 明子, Koyama Akiko, born 25 January 1935) is a Japanese stage and film actress who appeared in over 80 films, many directed by her husband Nagisa Ōshima. Koyama was born Akiko Usui in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture as the youngest of six children. She graduated from Kanagawa Prefectural Tsurumi High School in 1953 and entered a dressmaking school to study fashion design. After appearing on the cover of Katei Yomiuri magazine, she received an offer by the Shochiku film studios, where she gave her screen debut in 1955. In 1960, she married film director Nagisa Ōshima and left Shochiku with him, becoming a co-founder of the independent film company Sozosha which produced Ōshima's subsequent films and in which she regularly starred. In the 1980s, she switched from film to television work, while still appearing on stage. Koyama temporarily retired from acting after Ōshima's collapse from a cerebral hemorrhage in 1996 to nurse her husband. She and Ōshima, who died in 2013, had two sons. In recent years, she has been active as a lecturer and essayist on the subject of nursing care.