Retro

This clip from a late 1976 episode of Barney Miller, entitled “Christmas Story,” has Japanese actress and former Miss Tokyo Nobu McCarthy as a hooker/mugging victim, giving her report to Sgt. Ron Harris (and catching the eye of  Sgt. Nick Yemana, who doesn’t find out her occupation until after he makes a date with her).

Born Nobu Atsumi in Canada in 1934, she probably chose to keep her first husband’s surname because she had it when she made her acting debut in the 1958 film The Geisha Boy. Her film career lasted until her death in 2002, while she was on location in Brazil, making Gaijin 2: Love Me as I Am. More details of her death and career in this article at Backstage.com.

Above is Adele Yoshioka as “Sunny,” Harry Callahan’s very friendly neighbor, introducing herself to the San Francisco police inspector in 1973′s Magnum Force. According to the film’s screenwriter John Milius, the character Sunny was written in as Harry’s “love interest” because Clint Eastwood received many fan letters from Asian women that contained sexual propositions. Unless the info that those ladies were Asian, was solely gathered because they stated so in their writings or from their names, one can assume photos were also enclosed in those fan letters. I wonder if Mr. Eastwood saved them.

As for Miss Yoshioko, she pretty much retired from acting after her role as a lab assistant in the 1999 film A Table for One. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Coalition for Asian Pacifics in Entertainment, an organization she’s been involved with since 1991. Read more about that in this 2010 interview she did with Examiner.com.