Mako, a Japanese-American actor nominated for an Oscar and Tony who also helped form one of the leading Asian-American theatre companies in the United States, died of esophageal cancer at his home in Ventura County, Calif., on Friday. He was 72.
Born Makoto Iwamatsu in 1933 in Kobe, Japan, Mako was left in the care of his grandparents while his parents went to study art in the United States. In 1948, he immigrated to the States, studied architecture at the Pratt Institute in New York City, then went to California to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse.
Though his roles were sometimes limited to stock Asian characters, Mako enjoyed a successful career that included an Academy Award nomination for his turn in The Sand Pebbles in 1966. Ten years later, he had the lead in Stephen Sondheim's Pacific Overtures, for which he received a Tony nomination. He also appeared in Memoirs of a Geisha, Pearl Harbor and several episodes of the TV series M*A*S*H.
In 1965, he co-founded East West Players in Los Angeles, the first Asian-American theatre company in the U.S. The troupe performed both contemporary plays and classics by Shakespeare and Chekov, among others.