is a Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 film and television actor from Nagasaki.

A graduate of Senshu University

Senshu University

is a private university in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. Former "Senshu College" was founded in 1880, the first school in Japan comprising Economics and Law Departments to systematically offer a specialized educational curriculum in the Japanese language....

, Wakabayashi became a member of Shin Kokugeki, then Wakabayashi Promotions. Currently he is a member of Toho

Toho

is a Japanese film, theater production, and distribution company. It is headquartered in Yūrakuchō, Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group...

 Entertainment.

After some roles in minor television series, he appeared for the first time in an NHK

NHK

NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee....

 taiga drama

Taiga drama

is the name NHK gives to the annual, year-long historical fiction television series it broadcasts in Japan. Beginning in 1963 with the black-and-white Hana no Shōgai, starring kabuki actor Onoe Shōroku and Takarazuka star Awashima Chikage, the network has hired a producer, director, writer, music...

, Mominoki wa Nokotta in 1970. The network tapped him the following year for the role of Araki Mataemon

Araki Mataemon

was a Japanese samurai active in the early Edo period. Araki Mataemon was the founder of the koryū martial art Yagyū Shingan-ryū, known sometimes as Yagyū Shingan-ryū Taijutsu....

 in Haru no Sakamichi. (A different Araki, the hatamoto

Hatamoto

A was a samurai in the direct service of the Tokugawa shogunate of feudal Japan. While all three of the shogunates in Japanese history had official retainers, in the two preceding ones, they were referred to as gokenin. However, in the Edo period, hatamoto were the upper vassals of the Tokugawa...

Jūzaemon, was his character in a later film, The Fall of Ako Castle

The Fall of Ako Castle

is a 1978 Japanese historical martial arts period film, directed by Kinji Fukasaku. It depicts the story of the Forty-seven Ronin...

, directed by Kinji Fukasaku

Kinji Fukasaku

was a Japanese film actor, screenwriter, and best known as a celebrated and innovative filmmaker. He was born in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan, and died in Tokyo, from prostate cancer...

.) Also in 1971, he appeared as Maehara Isuke in the year-long series Daichūshingura

Daichushingura

is a television dramatization of the events of the Forty-seven Ronin. The first episode aired on January 5, 1971, and the 52nd and final episode appeared on December 28 of the same year. The NET network broadcast it in the Tuesday evening 9:00–9:56 prime-time slot in Japan.The series featured an...

with Toshirō Mifune

Toshiro Mifune

Toshirō Mifune was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 170 feature films. He is best known for his 16-film collaboration with filmmaker Akira Kurosawa, from 1948 to 1965, in works such as Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, and Yojimbo...

. He took guest roles in many other television series, including Mifune's Kōya no Surōnin, the 1970s Lone Wolf and Cub

Lone Wolf and Cub

is a manga created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Yorozuya Kinnosuke, and is widely recognized as an important and influential work.Lone Wolf and Cub...

TV series, and Suikoden

Water Margin

Water Margin , also known as Outlaws of the Marsh, All Men Are Brothers, Men of the Marshes, or The Marshes of Mount Liang, is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.Attributed to Shi Nai'an and written in vernacular Chinese, the story, set in the Song Dynasty,...

.

Returning to NHK, he portrayed Saitō Yoshitatsu

Saito Yoshitatsu

was a Japanese daimyo of the Sengoku period. He was the second generation lord of the Saitō clan.-Early life:Yoshiatsu was born in Mino Province in 1527, the eldest son of Saitō Dōsan. Some theorize that Yoshitatsu was in fact the son of Toki Yorinari, the former ruler of Mino...

 in the 1973 taiga drama Kunitori Monogatari. He has also appeared as Sanada Yukimura

Sanada Yukimura

was a Japanese samurai, second son of the Sengoku period daimyo Sanada Masayuki . His proper name was Sanada Nobushige , named after Takeda Shingen's younger brother Takeda Nobushige, who was a brave and respected warrior. He and his father were known as being excellent military tacticians...

 in Tokugawa Ieyasu (1983), and as the same warrior in Dokuganryū Masamune (1987). He played Abe Masahiro

Abe Masahiro

was the chief senior councillor in the Japanese government at the time of the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry. Against the shogun's wishes, and the wishes of many other government officials, he worked to open Japan to the West, signing the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854, and other unequal...

 in the 1990 Tobu ga Gotoku, his most recent taiga drama appearance.

Other Edo period

Edo period

The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....

 roles have included Katsu Kaishū

Katsu Kaishu

was a Japanese statesman, naval engineer during the Late Tokugawa shogunate and early Meiji period. Kaishū was a nickname which he took from a piece of calligraphy by Sakuma Shōzan. He went through a series of given names throughout his life; his childhood name was and his real name was...

, Kondō Isami

Kondo Isami

was a Japanese swordsman and official of the late Edo Period, famed for his role as commander of the Shinsengumi.-Background:Isami, who was first known as Katsugorō, was born to Miyagawa Hisajirō, a farmer residing in Kami-Ishihara village in Musashi Province, now in the city of Chōfu in Western...

, Nakajima Saburōsuke, Ōkubo Ichiō, and Yagyū Jūbei Mitsuyoshi

Yagyū Jūbei Mitsuyoshi

Yagyū Jūbei Mitsuyoshi is one of the most famous and romanticized of the samurai in Japan's feudal era.Very little is known about the actual life of Yagyū Mitsuyoshi as the official records of his life are very sparse. Yagyū Jūbei Mitsuyoshi grew up in his family's ancestral lands, Yagyū no Sato,...

. A jidaigeki

Jidaigeki

is a genre of film, television, and theatre in Japan. The name means "period drama" and is usually the Edo period of Japanese history, from 1603 to 1868. Some, however, are set much earlier—Portrait of Hell, for example, is set during the late Heian period—and the early Meiji era is also a popular...

role was Hotta Settsu-no-kami in Meibugyō Tōyama no Kin-san

Toyama no Kin-san

is a popular character based on the historical Tōyama Kagemoto, a samurai and official of the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Edo Period of Japanese history. In kabuki and kōdan, he was celebrated under his childhood name, Kinshirō, shortened to Kin-san. He was said to have left home as a young man,...

.

In the mid-1970s, Wakabayashi took prominent contemporary roles, appearing as a detective in Taiyō ni Hoero!, Oretachi no Kunshō, and G-Men '75

G-Men '75

was a long-running prime-time television detective series in Japan. It aired on Saturday nights in the 9:00–9:54 p.m. time slot on the Tokyo Broadcasting System network from May 24, 1975 to April 3, 1982. A sequel, G-Men '82, followed, as did various specials. With several updates and cast...

. In the last, he had a regular prime-time role in Episodes 105–335, co-starring with Tetsurō Tamba

Tetsuro Tamba

was a Japanese actor.-Biography:Tamba is perhaps best known by Western audiences for his role as Tiger Tanaka in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice . By then, he had among other roles appeared in two films by director Masaki Kobayashi: Harakiri and Kwaidan...

. The pair played the same roles in G-Men '82 (1982–83).

Wakabayashi appears frequently in two-hour specials, often as a detective. He has starred in shows on TV Asahi

TV Asahi

, also known as EX and , is a Japanese television network headquartered in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The company writes its name in lower-case letters, tv asahi, in its logo and public-image materials. The company also owns All-Nippon News Network....

, Fuji Television

Fuji Television

is a Japanese television station based in Daiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, also known as or CX, based on the station's callsign "JOCX-DTV". It is the flagship station of the Fuji News Network and the ....

, Nippon Television

Nippon Television

is a television network based in the Shiodome area of Minato, Tokyo, Japan and is controlled by the Yomiuri Shimbun publishing company. Broadcasting terrestrially across Japan, the network is commonly known as , contracted to , and abbreviated as "NTV" or "AX".-Offices:*The Headquarters : 6-1,...

, and Tokyo Broadcasting System

Tokyo Broadcasting System

, TBS Holdings, Inc. or TBSHD, is a stockholding company in Tokyo, Japan. It is a parent company of a television network named and radio network named ....

. A very different role was as a chef in Sushi Ōji (2007).

He is also a celebrity

Celebrity

A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...

, appearing on variety and quiz shows. He has done commercials for a variety of products. Wakabayashi dubbed the voice of Rock Hudson

Rock Hudson

Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...

's Stewart McMillan in the NHK broadcasts of McMillan & Wife.

Source

This article incorporates material from 若林豪 (Wakabayashi Gō) in the Japanese Wikipedia, retrieved on March 4, 2008.

External links

• Go Wakabayashi at IMDB
• 若林豪 at JMDB
• 若林　豪 Toho Entertainment Official Site