Shima Iwashita

Shima Iwashita, born on 3 January 1941 in Ginza, Tokyo, is a celebrated Japanese stage and film actress whose career spans more than six decades. She emerged from a theatrical family, being the eldest daughter of stage actors Kiyoshi Nonomura and Miyoko Yamagishi, and began her screen work while still in high school with a television appearance on NHK's Basu Tōri Ura in 1958. The following year she entered Seijo University’s literature department, but left without completing a degree to join the Shochiku film studio, where she made her cinematic debut in Keisuke Kinoshita’s The River Fuefuki; however, the first released film was Masahiro Shinoda’s Dry Lake. Her early performances earned her the Blue Ribbon Newcomer Award in 1961, and she quickly became a sought‑after talent, appearing in Yasujirō Ozu’s final film An Autumn Afternoon, Masaki Kobayashi’s classic Harakiri, and taking on a challenging dual role in Noboru Nakamura’s Twin Sisters of Kyoto (1963). Iwashita’s collaboration with her future husband, director Masahiro Shinoda, produced landmark works such as Assassination (1964) and the critically acclaimed Double Suicide (1969), where she again portrayed two characters and earned multiple Best Actress honors from Blue Ribbon, Kinema Junpo and Mainichi. In addition to her film success, she demonstrated versatile stage talent, notably playing Desdemona in Othello in 1969. The actress achieved widespread popularity in the 1980s and 1990s through the Yakuza Wives series, starring in eight of ten installments and cementing her image as a leading figure in female‑driven yakuza narratives. Over the years she has accumulated numerous accolades, including the Kinuyo Tanaka Award, the Medal with Purple Ribbon (2004), and the Order of the Rising Sun, 4th Class (2012). In 2000 she ranked tenth in Kinema Junpo’s readers’ poll of the top female movie stars of the 20th century, and a 2025 Sankei Shimbun poll placed her fourth among Shōwa‑era actresses, underscoring her lasting impact on Japanese cinema.