Keisuke Sagawa

Keisuke Sagawa (砂川 啓介, Sagawa Keisuke; 12 February 1937 – 11 July 2017^[1]) was a Japanese actor and tarento who was the first Taisō no Onīsan. He was born in Tokyo. His wife was actress and voice actress Nobuyo Ōyama.

While attending Seijo High School, he appeared in numerous socialist films such as Ashizuri Misaki. After graduation he entered Eguchi Dance Institute and studied modern dance and the fundamentals of acting.

In 1961 he became a prominent Uta no Ehon as the first generation guy from the Taisho Era ("Taisō no Onīsan").

In February 1964, he married voice actress Nobuyo Ōyama after having worked with her on-stage in the play, "Son Goku". At the time they married, she was a voice actor on the puppet show Boo-Foo-Woo for the original Okaasan to Issho program,^[2] but since it was a different program from Sagawa's Uta no Ehon, they hardly ever got to meet behind the scenes.

Despite being married, they never had any children, as they lost their first child, a son, to stillbirth and their second child, a daughter named Erika, to lung and heart disease after only 3 months.^[3]

As a successor to Yukio Aoshima and Kokontei Shinba VIII in Ohiru no Wide Show, he served as a presenter in various fields including six years from 1980. He appeared on the stage of Fuji Theater in 1985 and since then he was active as an actor as well as in lecture activities.

In 1988, co-authored with Ōyama, the cookbook Keisuke-Nobuyo no Omoshiro Sōzai 170 (Keisuke & Nobuyo's Curious Delicatessen) was published by Shufunotomosha and became a best-seller of more than a million copies, and in 1991 they co-authored and released a follow-up cookbook, Keisuke-Nobuyo no Omoshiro Shukō.

In 2001, he published Kamisan ha Doraemon (My Wife is Doraemon), a book about Ōyama's daily life as she battled cancer that year and the caregiving she received from him during that time.

In May 2009, he appeared in NHK Educational TV's 50th anniversary commemorative special program ETV50: Kodomo no Hi Special -Do Mitai Kyōiku TV Dai 2-dan- (Namahōsō) Okaasan to Issho as the first generation "Taisō no Onīsan", for the first time in about 40 years in costume and showed exercise gymnastics^[4] with the song "Genki ni Ichi, Ni".

In 2013, Sagawa announced that he had undergone surgery for early stage stomach cancer, but did not undergo chemotherapy.^[5][6]

On May 13, 2015, Sagawa announced that Ōyama was suffering from dementia and that he was taking care of her.^{[7] [8]} In 2016, while he was caring for Ōyama, Sagawa was diagnosed with kidney cancer and moved her into a nursing home so he could receive proper treatment for the illness.^[9]

In May 2017, Sagawa was hospitalized, and was readmitted the next month after suffering a cerebral infarction. He died on July 11, 2017, from ureteral cancer at the age of 80.^[10]

Ōyama visited him several times during his stay in the hospital, but was unable to make it in time for his final moments before he died. Although she served as the chief mourner, she did not attend Sagawa's wake or funeral due to her dementia.^[11]

• Keisuke Sagawa - actors7 official homepage (in Japanese)