Sono Osato

was an American dancer and actress. Her family moved to Chicago in 1925 in order to be closer to Frances' family, and Shoji opened a photography studio there. She studied with prominent dancers Berenice Holmes and Adolph Bolm. De Basil tried to persuade Osato to change her name to a Russian name, but she refused to do so.

As a musical theater performer, her Broadway credits included principal dancer in One Touch of Venus (a performance for which she received a Donaldson Award in 1943), Ivy Smith in the original On the Town, and Cocaine Lil in Ballet Ballads.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Osato was encouraged to change her name to something more "American", and for a short time she used her mother's maiden name and performed as Sono Fitzpatrick. In 1942, when the Ballet Theatre toured Mexico, Osato was unable to join the tour as Japanese Americans were barred from leaving the country, and she had several months without work. She was also unable to perform in California and other parts of the western United States when the company toured there later in the same year, as these states were deemed military areas and were off-limits for people of Japanese descent.

In 1980, Osato published an autobiography titled Distant Dances. In 2006, she founded the Sono Osato Scholarship Program in Graduate Studies at Career Transition For Dancers to help former dancers finance graduate work in both the professions and the liberal arts. In 2016, Thodos Dance Company in Chicago presented a dance production based on her life, titled Sono's Journey. Elmaleh died in November 2014, aged 95. She was the aunt of the installation artist of the same name, Sono Osato.

Filmography Year Title Role Notes1948 The Kissing Bandit Bianca