Yuzo Kayama

Yūzō Kayama (加山 雄三, Kayama Yūzō?) is a Japanese popular musician and film star born on April 11, 1937. His father, Ken Uehara, was one of one of the most popular film stars in Japan during the 1930s. Yuzo Kayama became one of Japan's biggest stars of the 1960s in the "Wakadaishô" or "Young Guy" film series. He showed his ability for drama when Akira Kurosawa cast him for his 1965 film, Red Beard (赤ひげ, Akahige?), starring Toshiro Mifune. Kayama reported that he found the two years spent making this film the most difficult, but proudest work of his life. As a singer, he performed a distinctly Japanese form of psychedelic surf music in the 1960s. One of his best-known songs was "Black Sand Beach." He is ranked at No.80, in a list of Japan's top 100 musicians, compiled by HMV Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.