Momoko Kōchi

Momoko Kōchi (河内 桃子, Kōchi Momoko) (7 March 1932 – 5 November 1998), born Momoko Ōkōchi (大河内 桃子, Ōkōchi Momoko), was a Japanese film, stage and television actress.

She is best known for her roles in the original Godzilla, playing the character of Emiko Yamane (a role she reprised in Godzilla vs. Destoroyah in 1995), and in The Mysterians, playing Hiroko Iwamoto.

Kōchi's paternal grandfather was Viscount Masatoshi Ōkōchi, the third director of Riken; her father, a painter, was the second son of Masatoshi. Her husband, television producer Sadataka Hisamatsu, with whom she had a daughter, was descended from the Hisamatsu-Matsudaira clan who ruled over the Imabari Domain.

After graduating from Japan Women's University's affiliated high school, Kōchi worked as an office lady, but she joined Toho through their "New Face" program in April 1953, along with Akira Takarada, Kenji Sahara, Yū Fujiki, and Masumi Okada (who later moved to Nikkatsu). Her first role was in A Woman's Heart Released (女心はひと筋に, Onna gokoro wa hitosuji ni) as Yaeko. One year later, she acted in movies directed by Kajirō Yamamoto.

It was in one of Yamamoto's movies that his protégé, Ishirō Honda, saw Kōchi while he was making a science fiction film, Godzilla, with a topical storyline. Honda chose her to play the main female role of Emiko Yamane. While her role served as the center of the movie's romantic subplot, it provided the purpose for the resolution of the main story. Even though she was inexperienced as an actress at the time, her role was excellent as she hoped for, and she did very well in it.

After her success in Godzilla, Kōchi was typecast in other science fiction and kaiju films, including Half Human and The Mysterians. She left Toho in 1958 to pursue her formal study of acting, which she did not receive upon early discovery in 1953.

One year after leaving Toho, Kōchi did her formal study of acting with Tsutomu Yamazaki and Kumi Mizuno and joined Haiyuza Theatre Company. She then debuted as a stage actress in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Her subsequent movie appearances have been reduced as a result and she mostly performed on stage (including The Merchant of Venice and Macbeth), while occasionally performing in television commercials as well as drama (including her role as Shōko Tsunashi in Thank You (ありがとう, Arigatō) from 1972 to 1973 with co-star Kiyoshi Kodama).

Kōchi made some appearances on TBS drama specials produced by Fukuko Ishii and written by Sugako Hashida. During her later years, she appeared as Toshiko Takahashi, a woman with Alzheimer's disease, in Wataru Seken wa Oni Bakari (渡る世間は鬼ばかり), with Kunihiko Mitamura. She also made some appearances in two-hour dramas such as Doyō waido gekijō (土曜ワイド劇場).

Since childhood, Kōchi showed off her photograph, "My Lover," in which she was depicted with her grandfather Masatoshi.

On 31 December 1957, Kōchi visited São Paulo for the opening of Toho's branch in Brazil with another Toho actress, Machiko Kitagawa (who would later become the wife of Kiyoshi Kodama). They then went to New York City in the United States to participate in the Japanese cinema exhibition. On 12 February 1958, they returned to Japan. At the time, worldwide travel liberalisation was still underway, and their visits to São Paulo and New York City became very valuable.