Misa Uehara

The very brief acting career of Misa Uehara might've never been were it not for the stubbornness of the man who directed her in her screen debut. When it came time to cast the role of Princess Yukihime for Akira Kurosawa's samurai adventure picture The Hidden Fortress (1958), hundreds of women-trained professionals and young starlets alike-auditioned, and were consistently rejected. Kurosawa, ever loyal to his vision, wasn't seeking an experienced talent or a bombshell with marquee value; and in the end, he put out a nationwide call, alerting all Toho employees to keep their eyes peeled for "a girl with a fresh and princess-like dignity" who had "the intensity of a samurai's daughter." Twenty-year-old Misa Uehara, then studying at Bunka Women's Junior College, was visiting the school's former president in Nagoya, who took her to see The Antarctic Continent (1957) at a local Toho-owned theater.