Sasaki Takamaru

Sasaki Takamaru was set to inherit the position of temple priest from his Buddhist father, but he rejected the path and instead attended a communications school in Kobe. While working as a telegraph clerk, he immersed himself in literature and became interested in the theater.

In 1920, he began meeting and rehearsing with prominent figures in the proletarian theater movement. He founded or co-founded several proletarian theater and avant-garde art organizations throughout the 1920s. He acted frequently with the Tokyo Leftist Theater, but was subjected to multiple imprisonments when the Japanese government began cracking down on communism and radical groups in the 1930s.

Sasaki entered the film industry after the war and played roles in a number of war movies, usually as characters in positions of authority. He frequently appeared in sci-fi films for director Honda Ishirô; his most prominent sci-fi role was as the exasperated Prime Minister in Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965).

He is the father-in-law of actor Chiaki Minoru, and the grandfather of actor Sasaki Katsuhiko.