
Kumamoto City-born Shimada Yoko is best known in the west as Mariko from the 1980 mini-series Shogun. The lady-in-waiting role created an interest in Japan and its culture overseas and introduced Japanese history to foreign audiences. She won the Golden Globe For Best Performance by an Actress in a TV-Series - Drama category and was nominated for a Prime-time Emmy Award for her work on the serial in 1981. Shimada, who spoke some English for the serial, had been acting for years prior to Shogun however. She began learning ballet since age three and wanted to become a ballerina until her high high school days. Her family had moved to Tokyo when she was eight. She obtained an agent and began acting while in junior high school. The TV serial Zoku Hyouten made her famous beginning 1970. She released a nude photo book, called Kir Royal, in 1992. She was 39 and the photo book became a bestseller shifting half a million copies. At 57 she starred in an 'AV' pornography video called Mikkai in 2011. This was a tribute to her body even at that age. Shimada has a reservation for a space burial.

Shōgun
TV • 1980

Ōgon no Hibi
TV • 1978

Tuesday Suspense Theater
TV • 1981

Crying Freeman
MOVIE • 1995

Fushoku no kōzō
TV • 1977

The Castle of Sand
MOVIE • 1974

The Inugami Family
MOVIE • 1976

The Hunted
MOVIE • 1995

Dog of Fortune
MOVIE • 1979

Truckster Goes to Hokkaido
MOVIE • 1976

Sunflower on the Hill
TV • 1993

Dead Angle
MOVIE • 1979

The Deep Red
MOVIE • 2005

Labyrinth Romanesque
MOVIE • 1988

Lupin the Thief: Enigma of the 813
MOVIE • 1979

I Am a Cat
MOVIE • 1975

Kanon
MOVIE • 2016

My Champion
MOVIE • 1981