Miyoshi Umeki, whose best supporting actress Oscar® for Sayonara (1957) was an historical first for an Asian performer, died of cancer on August 28 in Licking, Missouri. She was 78.

She was born on May 8, 1929 in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. Due to constant exposure to American pop music on Armed Forces Radio as a youngster, she learned to sing listening to the top singers of the time, which included Dinah Shore and Doris Day. She relocated to Tokyo and began performing in nightclub under the name Nancy Umeki.

She made her film debut in her native country in Youthful Jazz Daughter (1953). She moved to the United States in 1954 and soon found work in American nightclubs and made her national television debut the next year on Arthur Godfrey and His Friends. From there she got a screen test with Joshua Logan for the role of the ill-fated Katsumi, the wife of an American soldier (Red Buttons) in Sayonara (1957). Playing the role with understated charm, Umeki elevated the part beyond a mere stereotype and won the much coveted Oscar® for her performance. She proved that was no fluke when she was nominated for a Tony award the following year for her performance as Mei Li, a Chinese immigrant (distinction between Asian races were seldom made then) in the Broadway smash Flower Drum Song and repeated her role for the screen version in 1961.

Unfortunately, her subsequent film parts were a bit two-dimensional: a blushing geisha girl in Cry For Happy (1961), an island girl following an accident prone American officer (Jim Hutton) stationed in the South Pacific in The Horizontal Lieutenant, and a nondescript part as Michael Wilding's girlfriend in A Girl Named Tamiko (both 1962).

American television was far kinder to her and she made singing appearances on The Andy Williams Show, The Perry Como Show, and The Dinah Shore Chevy Show. She also had good dramatic parts in such hit shows as: I>Dr. Kildare, Rawhide, Mister Ed, The Virginian and Burke's Law. Her most memorable TV appearance - one that lasted three seasons - was as the warm, dutiful housekeeper Mrs. Livingston in The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969-72) with Bill Bixby and Brandon Cruz. Umeki retired from performing shortly thereafter. She is survived by her son, Michael Hood; and two grandchildren.

by Michael T. Toole