Tanie Kitabayashi

Kitabayashi Tanie was a Japanese actress. She won the award for best actress at the 10th Blue Ribbon Awards for Kiku to Isamu and at the 15th Japan Academy Prize for Rainbow Kids. Born Reiko Ando in Tokyo she began as a stage actress. Early in her career she became wellknown for portraying older women. Kitabayashi was a founding member of the famed Mingei Theatre founded in 1950. She won the Award of the Japanese Academy for Best Actress for her role in Daiyukai 1991. The role also won her Best Actress awards at the Mainichi Film Concours and Kinema Junpo Award. In 1960 she won Best Actress awards at the Mainichi Film Concours and the Blue Ribbon Awards for her work in Kiku to Isamu. Her most popular role was that of the voice of grandmother Kanta no Obaasan in the 1988 Studio Ghibli movie Tonari no Totoro. She died on April 27 2010 of pneumonia at a Tokyo hospital. She was 98.