Sometimes it is said that an actor best plays the opposite of his personality. Not sure I agree with this, but certainly they might be the most memorable roles for any particular actor. General Jimmy Stewart, veteran of the European air war, had one of his signature roles as a small-town man left behind by the war as 4-F in It's a Wonderful Life (1947).Tolga Alkan wrote:... Eddie Albert was considered as a hero and decorated to Silver Star by rescuing 47 marines during the İnvasion of Tarawa.Interesting thing is that, contrary to his shining military background, he very well portrayed a coward company commander who caused death of the GIs by own mistakes in the film "Attack" 1956.
This is understandable if unfortunate, since it follows from the audiences' exposure to non-English-language film and the marketing of the latter of course.Kim Sung wrote:My impression is that this thread is excessively focused on English-speaking actors
For Korean and Japanese actors of a certain time, there should be enough who came from wartime military experience simply because it was common enough among their generation, just as for Western actors of the time. If so many of them served in uniform and often in combat, it rated little mention then and only seems remarkable to some today. This also explains a natural modesty about their military service. whether combat or not, or decorated or not.
There are some references about wartime Japanese films depicting the Imperial soldier in the field, but I haven't yet seen those about Japan's postwar film industry revived and how it depicted the war.
This is to say that Mao himself nominated Kim to the award?Kim Sung wrote:[Kim Yum] volunteered for an fighter pilot when the Sino-Japanese war broke out, but was rejected. He remarried Chinese actress Chen Yi (秦怡) in 1947 and became a member of People's Representative in Shanghai in the People's Republic of China. He was nominated as the First-Rate Actor of China, the highest status of actor in China by Mao Ze-Dong in the 1950s. However, he was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and passed away in oblivion in 1983. Sadly, he is an almost forgotten figure in today's Korea.
It would seem that Kim also made his acting name in a prewar China into which he assimilated enough not to be well-remembered in Korea today. Also, as with most silent-film actors not well-remembered in the West, might his work be seldom seen except by specialized audiences seeking it out?
-- Alan