Personal Life
On May 1, 1914 Hayakawa married fellow Japanese actress Tsuru Aoki. She starred in several of his movies alongside him. In Europe the couple adopted western children and gave them Japanese names: a boy named Yukio and two girls, Yoshiko, an actress, and Fujiko, a dancer. Aoki died in 1961 at which time Hayakawa moved back to Japan and became a Zen master.
Hayakawa was known for his discipline and martial arts skills. While in University he played quarterback for the football team. He was once penalized for using jujitsu to bring down a rival player.
While filming The Jaguar's Claws, in the Mojave Desert, Hayakawa played a Mexican bandit, and the film required 500 cowboys as extras. On the first night of filming, the extras drank all night and well into the next day. No work was being done, so Hayakawa challenged the group to a fight. Two men stepped forward. Hayakawa said of the incident, "The first one struck out at me. I seized his arm and sent him flying on his face along the rough ground. The second attempted to grapple and I was forced to flip him over my head and let him fall on his neck. The fall knocked him unconscious." Hayakawa then disarmed yet another cowboy. The extras returned to work, amused by the way the small man manhandled the big bruising cowboys.
Read more about this topic: Sessue Hayakawa
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