Masaya Takahashi

was a Japanese actor and theatre director. He appeared in a wide range of films over six decades, including Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell, Belladonna of Sadness (1973), Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001), Returner (2002), and Air Doll (2009).

Life and career Masaya Takahashi was born on March 16, 1930, He graduated from Tokyo Metropolitan Toyama High School and later from the Haiyuza Acting School (second class). He began his career in 1954 by participating in the founding of the Shinjin-kai theatre company.

Over the following decades, he was a central figure in Japanese theatre, joining Shiki Theatre Company in 1956 and Bungakuza in 1961. In 1963, he left Bungakuza with actors including Hiroshi Akutagawa, Hitoshi Takagi, and Kyōko Kishida to help establish Gekidan Kumo. Following the company's split in 1975, he joined Engekishūdan En, where he shifted focus primarily to directing, notably staging many plays by Minoru Betsuyaku.

He was married three times: first to actress Haruko Kato (m. 1958–div. 1973), then to Yachiyo Fujii (1974–1999), with whom he had a daughter, and finally to a woman 38 years his junior in 1999, whom he stayed married to until his death. In 1993, Takahashi was diagnosed with advanced esophageal cancer and underwent surgery to remove his entire esophagus, but he made a successful recovery and continued working into his later years. Takahashi died on January 16, 2014, at a hospital in Yamanashi Prefecture from respiratory failure at the age of 83. Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968) as Toshiyuki Saga, an astrobiologist Submersion of Japan (1973) as Professor Yamashiro Returner (2002) as Liu Laoban 1,778 Stories of Me and My Wife (2011) The Complex (2013) as Old Man Shinosaki R100 (2013) as a theatre audience member