She accepted her Oscar in a kimono, and her speech was gentle and tentative.
She then thanked “all American people” and bowed to the audience.
(She later scored a Golden Globe nod in 1962 for the film adaptation.)
Credit: Earl Leaf/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
She portrayed a shy, lovelorn Chinese immigrant promised to a nightclub owner in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
“I asked her, ‘Why did you agree to do the pidgin English?'”
her son, Michael Hood, says now.
Everett Collection
Still, she found ways to express how she really felt.
Cruz, who starred as Eddie onCourtshipuntil he was 10, remembers Umeki’s commitment despite her thankless part.
“Miyoshi got what she wanted by just being smart and quiet.”
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Quiet, sure, but never meek.
Hood says she chose to retire from acting afterCourtshipwas canceled in 1972.
“When I asked her why years later, she said she had achieved everything she wanted to achieve.
Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Her dream was to come here and entertain.”
That dream, though, seems to have come at a cost to her spirit.
(“When my father passed away, Mom took it real hard,” he remembers.)
