Ranko Hanai

Ranko Hanai (花井蘭子, Hanai Ranko, 15 July 1918 – 21 May 1961) was a Japanese actress who appeared in about 200 films between 1929 and 1961. Hanai was born Yoshiko Shimizu in Osaka, Japan. As a child, she acted with the theatre troupes of Takeo Kawai and Rokurō Kitamura, and gave her screen debut under the name of Reiko Shimizu in 1929. She entered the Nikkatsu film studio in 1931 and moved to J. O. Sutajio (later Toho) in 1937. In 1946, in opposition to the union strike at Toho, Yamada sided with the anti-unionist group "Jū hito no hata no kai" ("Society of the Flag of Ten"), which consisted of Setsuko Hara, Hideko Takamine, Isuzu Yamada and others, and joined the Shintoho studio. During the 1950s, she also occasionally worked for Toho and other production companies, appearing in films of Mikio Naruse, Heinosuke Gosho, Kinuyo Tanaka and Kaneto Shindō. She died in 1961 at the age of 42.